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East German 2 strokes. They did sell some over here. Very cheap and quite spacious but slow, smelly and not the best handling.
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Sounds interesting to me. Along with Jawa 350s and those big Panther singles you could get from Pride and Clarke (was it?)
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Don't know about slow DS, i seem to remember finding them to have exceptional acceleration for the time.
My sis had the Knight saloon, quite a decent car too.
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No need for a fuel pump when the petrol tank is on top of the engine.
Genius.
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See home.clara.net/peterfrost/wartburg.html for info on the Wartburg history.
This link mareku.vox.com/library/post/wartburg-cars.html mentions that the firm was part of BMW for a while.
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Oilrag - I got my Panther 650 with a Watsonian double adult sidecar from Claude Rye, somehere sarf of the Thames! £299 on the road I recall, in 1964.
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Sounds interesting to me. Along with Jawa 350s and those big Panther singles you could get from Pride and Clarke (was it?)
Oily, you're going back a bit. Pride an Clarke up tarn mefinks. Panther 600 S/C sloper iirc.
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Pride and Clarke up tarn mefinks.>>
That's where my father bought a Douglas Dragonfly (£196 plus a few shillings and pence!)
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Berlin is a great place to spot all this stuff and while you're at it you can drink a lot of very fine beer. That said it is also a very fine city if you happen to love concrete. Apart from the beer it reminded me of Hulme (Manchester) circa 1988.
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Friend of mine's parents had a Wartburg (presume the 353 aka 'Knight') in the late 70s. I guess it was the Lada/Skoda of its day.
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Nope, if you had a Lada at the time you got 4 cylinders of supermodern over head cam design. Lada's were like a Rolls Royce in comparison. This is the reason why these Wartburg cars were rare while Lada's were very common. With a Lada you got a proper modern motor motor car for half the price of an Escort but with the Escort you would have got an overhead valve engine (a very good one mind).
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Quite - I won't dispute the technical details you quote but what I meant was that Wartburgs were presumably the cheap, communist bloc import cars of their time ie the 70s in the same way that Lada and Skoda were in the 80s.
I guess the Ladas and Skodas must have been better otherwise we would have seen much more Wartburgs in the 80s.
Tell me Rattle, what do you think of the FSO Polonez?
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i remember wartburg nights they were the cheapest van you could get and i went many miles in one
it did everything as it should but the windscreen did explode one day of its own accord
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The Polenez and all FSO's were pretty awful. Ladas had a lot of short comings, the electrics were appalling I was for ever replacing fuses on my dads and I was only a kid at the time BUT they were probably no worse than a later MK2 Escort which you could buy a rusting one for the price of a brand new Lada by the end of early 80's.
The problem with the FSO is they had shocking build quality I remember as a kid saying dad
"why do FSOs rust when they are 3 years old" my dad didn't have a clue what an FSO was but I remember being 11 or 12 years old and being fasinated that a G or H reg car could look like it was ten years old when it was actually just three. I think it was fair to say you would expect a Lada Riva to cover 60,000 and 10 years in its life time, an FSO would be more like 40k and 6 years.
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rattle please dont put mk2 escort in the same sentence as a lada
its just not cricket
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>>With a Lada you got a proper modern motor motor car>>
Oh come on, you can't be serious. They were so bad that the UK importer had to completely refit the interior, whilst the dashboard was a horrendous, squeaking example of poor plastic mouldings; the nearest Lada to a modern design was the Samara.
They were basic transport for Russian roads, hence the tough suspension and heavy duty motor and battery.
Re FSO and the Polonez. I once bought one as a short term form of transport which eventually stayed for just over a year. Still got the handbook.
Heavy on fuel, with sticky red vinyl seats and steering that certainly built up the muscles, but looked quite presentable in white and never actually let me down, despite being used over large areas of the UK. It didn't display any evidence of rust.
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You're missing the point. The point is they cost half the price of a RWD Ford Escort. They were modern compared to other things you could get at the time. By the mid 80's they had started to show their ages and by 1990 they were hopeless but I doubt you could find any new better car for £2800 in 1980. For that money you could get a FIAT 126 with a 600cc screamer.
You have to compare it to what else was on the market at the time. Personaly by the late 80's I think I would have much rather had a four year old Meastro but up until about 1988 there was very little that could touch it.
I am not doubting that Ladas were awful cars and by todays standards I think horrofic would be the best word to describe them but they give motoring to millions who could not afford a car otherwise including my parents. Some sources say they have sold as many as the VW Beatle MK1 but its very hard to actually know how many have been built.
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>>You're missing the point. >>
No Rattle, I'm not missing the point. I drove enough of the blooming things to know exactly what they were like, as well as the 4x4 Niva...:-)
Mind you a Riva or similar rarely ever let an owner down and, in fact, a late friend travelled all over the country in one, as well as a Skoda Estelle he owned for a time.
It's the build quality I'm basically commenting on, but even so I wouldn't consider what was even then an ancient Fiat based design a "modern" car...:-)
Perhaps an even worse car at the time was the Dacia Duster, built in Romania and with some Renault input in the late 1980s/early 1990s (not the current Dacia concept vehicle).
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>>>not the current Dacia concept vehicle<<<
What, like this one ~ www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW9ERWzsSco
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>>What, like this one >>
Yep, that's the one...:-)
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I worked on a few Dacia Denims, based on the Renault 12 IIRC - not too bad really, I never ran a feeler gauge over the Duster though (Thank goodness !)
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 25/09/2009 at 22:35
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Some info on Dacia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_Dacia
"The original Dacia Duster was a compact, utilitarian 4x4, sold in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was powered by Renault petrol and diesel engines, but was built by another, now-defunct Romanian automaker called ARO" (source tinyurl.com/ybecky5).
I recall driving it on an "off-road" course (a farmer's field and woods).
Edited by Stuartli on 25/09/2009 at 16:15
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they had the pewgot diesel engine as i remember, as it was the best thing on them
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they had the pewgot diesel engine as i remember as it was the best thing on them>>
"They" being?
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>>>Some info on Dacia:<<<
So the 1st Dacia was based on the Renault 8, I actually remember the chunky 8 and worked on 1 or 2, rear engined I believe.
The Dacia Denem, based on the Renault 12 was a damn good car (for the time) far better than the likes of Wartburg, Lada, Moskvitch, FSO, IMO, but - it wasn't successful like those other Eastern block names were in the UK for some reason.
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Renault 8 was certainly rear engined as were the R10 and 11.
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>>>Renault 8 was certainly rear engined as were the R10 and 11.<<<
Yeah, it could easilly have been the 10's I was thinking of - sooo many different makes and models and numbers, but I know one thing - the 11 was tranverse FWD.
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>> Sounds interesting to me. Along with Jawa 350s and those big Panther singles you could >> get from Pride and Clarke (was it?) >> Oily you're going back a bit. Pride an Clarke up tarn mefinks. Panther 600 S/C sloper iirc.
Yes, it was a 600 single with the engine as part of the frame. They were very common in the West Riding (made in Cleckheaton) and the sidecar bike par excellence. In top gear the engine used to fire once about every 100 yards - thump....thump....thump. A friend of mine had a quite unusual Panther 250cc. He could never get the timing right and the exhaust pipe used to glow cherry red. Didn't need a front light at night.
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Wartburg of course! No wonder Wolfsberg gave no results, I said time must have clouded the memory. And the engine was a 2 stroke, that rings a bell. Thanks for the info.
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Panther may have been sold by Pride and Clarke(and other firms) but they were made by Phelon and Moore-did a lovely two-stroke twin,as well.
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The two stroke engine was also used in the Melkus RS 1000 gull wing sports car now reborn as the Melkus RS 2000 on show in Frankfurt:
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6172314/Ferrari-...l
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Pride & Clarks? I remember them as Pride & Sharks!
I tuned more than a few Wartburgs - never liked them - don't like 2 strokes, even on lawnmowers blimmin things!
FSO Polenez? .. well, I'm gonna make some more tea!!
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Nothing wrong with 3 cylinder two strokes. Saab did very well with them, especially on rallies!
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>>>Nothing wrong with 3 cylinder two strokes. Saab did very well with them, especially on rallies!<<<
Well I never! ... see, you're never too old to learn :) I hold Saab in the very highest esteem (pre GM of course!)
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I remember quite a few journeys in a Wartburg Knight (..well how could you forget really..)
& thought at the time how zippy & comfortable they were - remember what the British competition was at the time? Marinas, ancient looking & sounding Fords, prehistoric Vauxhalls etc.
I remember comfortable (almost French-style) seats, an engine that just seemed to burble & pop & never have to work hard, suspension that swayed & floated & soaked up bumps. Yeah, liked it.
A friend a bit later had a Saab 3-cyl 2-stroke with freewheel that had much the same vibe - although it seemed to handle more tautly & be more focussed as a driving tool.
There's so much more drama & fun with a 2-stroke engine - cars with them semed almost joyous & alive somehow. Shame about the appalling fuel consumption & emissions.
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I'll vouch for the fact that a Knight handbrake was as good as any too...as the footbrake pedal sank to the floor whilst descending an A1M slip road (it might have been Nth Stevenage or Welwyn) the handbrake pulled the car up quite well...mind you i've never been one for belting up to the last moment before braking..thankfully.
That East German brake fluid wasn't up to much at the time..;)
Been thinking about these overnight and yes they did have some oomph, would leave most 4 pots standing, but then in a way a 3cyl 2 stroke is putting out the power strokes of a 6 cyl 4.
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>>> but then in a way a 3cyl 2 stroke is putting out the power strokes of a 6 cyl 4<<<
Is that right! Well, I'm certainly learning some today ... was never really into 2 strokes really, I know ya put the engine oil in the petrol tank for some strange reason :)
I'm a dyed in the wool petrol head ... diesel engines are ok (in a J4 van!) - talking of which, I was walking the dawg yesterday and I hear's this Perkins type clatter coming down the road, Lo And behold it was a Qashqai with a DERV engine, it had obviously just started orf from cold -gimme a nice petrol engine + slushbox anyday!
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Most of the successful rally Saabs were V4 Ford engined cars.
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Erik Carlsson seemed to do quite well with two-strokes.
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As did Walther Schluter in three-cylinder DKWs which were not dissimilar to the Saabs of the time.
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Both in their early days;many of Carlsson's successes were in V4 engined cars.
Edited by jc2 on 25/09/2009 at 19:34
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Nothing wrong with 3 cylinder two strokes. Saab did very well with them especially on rallies!
So did Commer trucks with the TS3 3 cylinder 2 stroke diesel which had 2 pistons per cylinder and developed the same power as a contemporary 4 stroke 8 litre Gardner with only 3.25 litre displacement. I used to help a friend with harvesting with a tipper with that engine. He drove the combine and I'd have the truck alongside to take the grain discharge. When full I'd rapidly head for the yard, empty out and back for the next load. In the meantime he'd use the internal tank on the combine. If you got everything co-ordinated and didn't hang about you got the job done twice as quick as running the combine solo. For those interested, the pistons were opposed, one for air and one for exhaust.
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You've been and gorn and done it now DS, i'll have to find some clips of Deltics under power now to get me 2T fix..;)
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>>the pistons were opposed, one for air and one for exhaust.
Are you sure?
IIRC they had a common combustion chamber and the supercharger was only to purge the exhaust (and supply a fresh charge of air).
I suppose each piston could have uncovered a seperate inlet/exhaust port?
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You've been and gorn and done it now DS i'll have to find some clips of Deltics under power now to get me 2T fix..;)
Probably some in this thread GB :-)
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=69489&...e
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commer TS3 3 cylinder 2 stroke diesel
www.sa.hillman.org.au/TS3_files/go_ts3.gif
sort of explains things
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The two-stroke engine in the Commer lorry was one of the most memorable noises ever. I haven't heard or seen one for many years but I can visualise it.
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Avant.......
Have yourself a trip down memory lane with these two vids. They will give you some lovely sounds to take you back a few years.
tinyurl.com/ybnn5v2
Scroll down to the fourth movie "Don Julians? immaculate 1973 CE". It brought back some old memories for me to see the fancy footwork of the down change double de-clutch whilst braking. This chap is doing it on the level by the look of it, so not in any particular hurry. Going downhill with a load on you would need to be a wee bit quicker!
Another Commer TS3 vid here
tinyurl.com/y9sfjh7
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Thanks SC, for some reason i missed that thread last year, feel much better now for a good fix.
Just been discussiing with swmbo why these lovely 2T engines especially Deltic should have had such an effect on a lad.
She likes them too, and puts it into the 'awesome' engined machine category similar to but on a much smaller scale to Concorde, i suppose thats it maybe we knew deep down they couldn't last forever so got as much pleasure out of every vision and sound as we could.
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