What It's Like To Drive The Deadest Car Alive | Jason Drives
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- čas přidán 26. 10. 2015
- The Wartburg is dead. It's not coming back. Jason drives a Wartburg 311 in a cemetery to bring you what it's like to drive the East German version of a Buick.
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Dammit I misread the title, for half the video I thought it was supposed to be the "deadliest" car alive
me too
winterloggan same
Same! God damnit. Watched the whole video and just saw this comment.
winterloggan it takes a lot to make me laugh after three in the morning, but your comment did the job. Thanks.
Yes! I finally realized it at the end of the video when I wondered what was so deadly about it.
Nice that a Wartburg made it all the way to the USA :D Even here in Germany they are pretty rare.
+MrWastlandboy They were, briefly, imported and sold new. If you look on the owners' website there's a section of anti-Communist hate mail the importers received back in the day.
@@nlpnt Which is stupid...The engineers had to struggle with the communist regime..They had to fight for every little change in terms of technique or design...So the sports cabriolet version was very rare...Even in the old days.It was Ulbrichts order...The rule was:"We don't build cars for playboys".and indeed...East german moviestars could afford it.None of them workers at the "VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach" were able to.
Bet these "communist haters"did not know.The Wartburg is a part of german automobil tradition and history..As the 311 came up,it was as good as the west german DKW ...which was basically the same tech and pretty much a close design.
The owner of the car is a lucky devil.
I bought a new BMW 2002 in 1968. The window crank handles kept snapping off due to the "safety" design, which didn't account for the forces of actually rolling the windows down or up. The dealer replaced them for free, but it was a PITA. A local junkyard specialized in oddball foreign cars like Citroen, etc., and they had a couple Wartburgs out back, and they had the same spline and screw size as BMW, so I bought the cranks, which were heavy cast aluminum with ivory color knobs. They looked odd in my car, but the never broke.
Zoomlens ??
This is the most charming Eastern Bloc cars I have ever seen.
+patriotbarrow what about Volga? :D
+BroSorry Which one? The V12 KGB special?
patriotbarrow There are many of them, basically all of them are kinda dead
+patriotbarrow It was a V8... also, every Tatra that isn't a truck xD
Check out Škoda 110 R, Škoda 130 RS, Škoda Felicia (the old one, not the one from 90s) or Škoda 1000 MB
The Wartburg 313 Coupe get a price for design 1955 in New York ! You know this? Is crazy or ? Greetings from Eisenach / Thuringia East-Germany ! ;-)
Ach ja unser Thüringen und der Wartburg sind schon was feines.
grüße aus eisenach ^^
All East German cars are damn reliable. And Trabant, I learned to drive on, is a great car. Spacious for the size, simple to maintain, cheap spares, charming (if not beautiful), has a HUGE trunk, size of Mercedes trunk possibly. And it's all but mediocre and instant starter of conversations.....
Hassu einen an der Waffel oder sind das Stasi - Flashbacks ?
Statese Tice Billige Ersatzteile?!
Yeah, cheap spares. To be fully honest - I am trans girl, and even I could maintain it. And a big 20000 kilometer (like 13000 miles) service I do on it (yeah, you read it right, a transgender artistic girl who got into classic cars while being forced by family to act like a man, so I service it) costs me less in spares than one month of my hormone therapy. And, Trabants are still plentiful here in ex-Yugoslavia - spares are available, in Belgrade, where I live, a couple of mechanics and stores sell them. I also do not have to worry if any hate group is going to stomp it - outside panels cost like 1500 to 3000 dinars per piece - 12 to 25 euros. Minor damages - I can glue it. No rust, scratches, dents. Very hipster-ish, attention drawing, comfortable (I drove it for 700 miles with 3 friends inside, no problem!). Count on the fact that I like unusual things and am unusual person, that I am not bothered by anyone's opinion, that I do NOT plan having family and kids, so I do not need more space. For what an artistic leftist transgender person needs from a car - Trabant is picture perfect.
Well, if you're a T/A gal, what are doing in a commie car?
It happened so that I needed a car of any kind for my business and that I inherited a Trabant in a reasonably good shape that needed less than a monthly cost of my hormones to run perfectly. I used it to deliver my artworks to customers, it never let me down..
You wouldn't be running from the secret police in this thing you would be the secret police everyone else got Trabants.
not this thing but another wartburg, the 353 to be precise. with imported petrol. Sometimes they had audis.
eL graPa
Ah thanks for clearing that up, surely this car would still be for people higher up the social ladder since it looks nicer then a Trabant?
Well, yes but it was built in a period when the GDR wasn't totally ruined yet, economically speaking. Wartburg had some pretty nice designs. Some claim that Giugiaro got heavily influenced by the Wartburg 1.3 prototype design.
What, there was a social ladder in Communist East Germany!
what a beautiful car. My Father has also a Wartburg.
greetings from eastern Germany
So did mine, in UK. Not a convertible
Such a lovely car...though the two stroke oiling up was a problem u
It looks like a typical fifties/sixties car to me. Just like we can look at cars from the 80s or 90s and many times say "yup thats an 80s car"
Yeah, the 311 wasn't that terrible for its time. The 353 that came after it is far worse since it was produced until 1988, with the same basic 1938 design and engine.
@@JimmiG84 like how worse it looks pretty decent to me
Anybody can review a supercar. Thanks for taking on something with more personality.
That engine bay at 1:11 makes me feel so relaxed and also a good mechanic :).
1:35 is the pianist having a stroke or something?
hahahhaha
yes, in fact he had 2 strokes
G3 yeah, that made him throttle. guess he should've gone for the freewheel version.
thatsthejoke.jpg
G3 what's the name of the song ?
very well made and accurate! I am from Leipzig, Germany. My first car used to be a Wartburg 353 (successor of 311) from 1972 (I was born 1974 by the way :-) ). For those who asked for more mechanical details: water cooled (you see in the vid the propeller, which is sitting on the same shaft as the cooling pump and driven by a belt) 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine with single carburetor, noise reduction and air filter. 3 individual sparking coils, so no distributor. Mechanical, pneumatic operated fuel pump (pressurized by the crank housing of the block), three-in-one exhaust, pre-silencer, center-silencer, post-silencer. 2-way brake system, drums in front and rear, no power brake. No power steering. Front wheel drive, 4 synchronized gears, not synchronized rear-gear. What I liked most, was the giant space in front and rear seats as well as booth (500+ liter) and its comfortable seats and easy maintenance.On the other hand the consumption was high, almost impossible to get it down 9 liter/100km in the city, my early 353 model had drum brakes in the front axle as well which were horrible (especially when fully seated). Also the cabin fan for heating was weak.
These episodes are very enjoyable. You tell me info I didn't know about cars I didn't know existed all while risking your life in the most unextreme way. Thanks.
If you want to drive a 1975 Austrian made military personnel carrier used by the Swiss, my Pinzgauer 710M is in Atlanta GA area. It is unique, interesting, and there is a solid chance it will kill u or someone you hit
Meilenwerker Yes, I know. Previously the company was called Steyr-Daimler-Puch. However, it is used by a great many national militaries around the world because it is so tough and so capable. In fact the Pinzgauers smaller predecessor the Haflinger was also used in small numbers by the British army and also by the Royal Navy because its pontoon chassis design meant that it could be easily disassembled down to the almost flat pontoon unit which made it very easy for transporting onboard ship as well as being very light. Back in the '60s and early '70s every larger Naval vessel had at least one Haflinger on board until Land Rover developed the Lightweight or more correctly, Air Portable derivative of the 88" which eventually replaced it in service.,..
"Listen to that. Listen to that strange strange sound" *Said over what we're supposed to listen to*
I remember seeing one of these, back in the day. It reminds me of a Borgward. I saw a few of them, too. In the 50s and early 60s there were some strange European cars on the roads here, brought back by US servicemen who were stationed in Europe. That was when anything could be imported and licensed, before all the Federal regulations took all the fun out of everything.
Someone needs to tune that background piano.
Philip Royd yea wasn't sure if it was on purpose...
I had an early 60's Vartburg. I worked at the Karlshorst Central Administration and it was kind of a car everyone used. Someone transferred out and just left it for us, and when we left we did the same. it ALWAYS started, the heat NEVER worked, and it kind of grew on you. A lot of memories for sure. It smelled like a Soviet hospital, a strong smell actually and the seats seemed to be tougher than anything known to us I don't know what they used for seat covers but they looked like new after years of abuse and moving furniture etc. There's a weird torque curve to the engine, it's a two stroke thing. I later drove some Soviet trucks which had reverse-engineered Detroit Diesel engines and it was similar. You kind of have to have your foot in them a bit or they start chugging and smoking. Right now, something like the Vartburg would destroy the market. It would last generations with a farmer maintaining it.
When I was about six, my parents bought a Wartburg 353 turist. This is about 1980. Still had a backwards mounted two stroke engine and a four speed column shifter, with drum brakes all round. We had it for 10 years and road tripped it across Europe. The color could best be described as curry vomit and the "wood" on the dash was wood printed sticker tape.
When people that didn't know the brand looked into the engine bay, there was that pause where their understanding of the world failed expectations, as the radiator was pushed up against the firewall.
Great job, guys. I really like this series!
Jason, that's a well observed review of the 311. I've had two Wartburg 353s and although they didn't have the aesthetics of the 311s they were great to drive and 33mpg (Imperial) was easily achieved in rural UK.
These videos of ridiculously obscure cars are great, keep em coming!! When the Wartburg 311 was new, it was actually a halfway decent/modern car by European small car standards of the time. DKW and Saab were still using 2-stroke 3-cylinders back then too, and they were all fairly successful with them.
Oh, I love that car! Take good care of it, it will become a very valuable classic car one day!
7:23 Subaru nerd spotted.
I like it.
What you said after @6:09 made me laugh out as loud so I tipped over my bowl of popcorn. Worth it!
Originally the mirror isn't on the wing, it was on the a-pillar. So if the car is in an original condition, the view in the mirror is okay ;-)
It was originally on the column in this version, since it is cabrio (retractable top). The sedan with fixed top had the mirror on the top frame. We had the sedan in my childhood.
Cool videos man! Really like the style!
I enjoyed every second of this video:D Hehe I love this series:D
Love this series!
lovin' the new season!
Yup, two stroke without load or when doing engine braking usually sounds a bit like something has gone wrong.
You sir need to come drive my Saab Sonett..
That car as the same powertrain as the Saab 93
Awesome video. Very appropriate music!
I use to own a Trabant 601. That was my best car ever, even I went trough Renault, Peugeot, BMW, Mazda etc... Those IFA cars were something special. I hope I can buy one sometime in the future.
this guy is great! film more of his reviews
I saw a hardtop enter the Nürburgring Nordschleife with 5 people in it. After 20+ minutes it arrived back at the entrance after completing it's lap.
Our first family car was a Wartburg in 1988. People still keep driving these in our country. For shifting gears, you needed two things: muscles and luck. Sometimes we couldn't leave our village because my parents couldn't find gears above 2 with the shifter. With this car, you really had to be an amateur car mechanic. But constantly fixing these cars was also simple and fun, and it brought people together. When we went to see our relatives with our Wartburg, women gathered in the kitchen to prepare the meals and men gathered around the opened hood of the Wartburg to fix it.
Wait...nobody owns Wartburg?! LIGHT BULB!
Someone should make replicas powered by modern engines lol
Nice Car .
i work on my Trabant 601 build in 1964 and its verry cool have and drive this kind of Cars.
All 2 stokes make that sound lol
"It's actually, really, a great little car"....I hear you, Jason..!! Don't disparage the 'Deek', I had two of them and they were practical and comfortable little cars and front wheel drive afforded more room in the cabin for people. Of course, they were in competition with Volkswagen back in the day, the Chrysler Corporation imported them to the U.S. for a time in the '50s. Rust eventually became the demise of mine but they would easily cruise the parkways at 55mph and got 26 or so mpg.
bravo! well done episode 😀
40 mph on a cemetery, thats so American.
+djweetos 40 kph most likely, nothing is in miles in Europe except those silly Brits.
+Rowan Atkinson Or Ireland, they're metric now but a 1959 car sold there new would've had a speedo in miles.
+Rowan Atkinson The Wartburgs that where exported to the U.S. had the speed showing in miles. Also this type of front and rear fender was only found on the U.S. versions
+Michael Andersen Wow, never knew. Although we lived next door to DDR, their cars were super rare in Poland where I lived, and the only people that owned one had nothing nice to say about them.
+nlpnt If it was a British or Irish market car it would be right-hand drive...
Would have liked to have seen more of the engine and mechanicals
Agreed,I think Jay Leno would have properly thrashed it.
Got a Trabant here in South Africa......great little car. Similar running gear as the Wartburg!
Despite being rather thirsty these smoky two stroke engines were popular among people with access to various chemicals such as solvents or toluene because they'd burn just about anything. Just make sure to add a little bit of 2 stroke oil into the cocktail and change your plastic hoses for copper tubing. Tree huggers gonna love you. There were also two stroke vans called Barkas that are about as cool.
Wonderful... the car of my childhood and youth.. nice to see it's driving around in Amerika:-).
simply love this video :)
I think it sounds beautiful!
All the "furniture feel" jokes had me dien!!!!!
Yeah, It sounds a 3cyl DKW! I remember very well the sounds and smell of 2t oil coming from the pipe.
I am from Dresden and i cannot remember ever seeing one of those, specially not the Cabriot version. :D
You should try the "Fiat 126p" at some point!
InternationalGam3rs Do you want that some American torments our maluch? It was a terrible car and without nostalgia you will hate it, better if he drive trabant or zaporozhets from our beloved neighbours that ware even worse ;)
@@Pandzikizlasu80 fiat 126 is a lot better than trabant I use daily one of 126 bis water cooled model
@@huseyinuguralacatli5064 Ofcourse fiat 126p bis was better than DKW from 30 with an ugly plastic body panels after a facelifting in 50', called trabant. I loved the trabants feature of gassing travellers in case of a hole in the front muffler that was also a heater - it was so German LOL
I love the old East German 2-stroke engines. I had an MZ ETZ251 motorcycle in the late 80s/early 90s & it was huge fun, in a slightly temperamental way.
I wonder if Eisenach's finest son, Johann Sebastian Bach, would have driven a Wartburg?
digitalorganism69 The MZ engine was also a DKW design (as was the BSA Bantam)
I love reviews of weird cars like this.
That is a surprisingly elegant and beautiful little convertible
Thing sounds awesome!
Was not unusual for European cars to have four forward gears in 1960, in fact it was more unusual to have less. You are thinking maybe of your American autos?
Yeah. Ford tried to dump us with 3-speed column changes for a while, but no-one liked them. We went back to 4-speed, which everyone else had anyway.
yep my 57 Volvo Amazon had 4 on the floor ......as they say
This thing needs a bumper sticker "If you can't see my mirrors... welcome to the club!"
It's been awhile since we've had a new Jason Drives. I want to see more weird cars! I'd offer my 26 y/o Ford Escort for an episode lol
Can you think of a car brand deader than Wartburg?
+Jalopnik
horch, dkw, nsu, wanderer ....
+amduser86 they live as the glorious Auto Union (Audi)!
+Jalopnik Goggomobil!
+Jalopnik Reliant makes of the Robin.
+Jalopnik yugo
Can't speak for elsewhere, but in the UK people relied on the internal mirror back in the 60s. The 'wing mirrors' were adjustable, with a spanner, and were positioned for the driver, who was assumed to be the same person. If you tried to put a mirror where you might expect one today, the view was normally highly restricted by the metalwork around the forward ventilator triangle, which also made the falling part of the side window nominally rectangular. This design was 'de facto' as the ventilation through the dashboard was rudimentary, or non-existant, and the seal and glass manufacturing technology only worked for flat rectangles.
The Wartburg brand is owned by Opel, who took over the Wartburg factory in 1990. Later a new factory was built close to the old one, to assemble Opels. Apparently Opel are to launch a new Wartburg which will be a cheap economy version of the Opel Corsa. Unlike some Soviet era cars, the Wartburg was very well engineered, but the two stroke engine did not have much appeal outside of East Germany. They were sold in the UK for a while but were a rare sight on the roads. The two stroke engine was used in the old beetle shaped Saabs which had a lot of rally success in their day, until Saab replaced it with a Ford engine, which turned this nippy car into a slug.
I remember we had one of those, and a trabant when i was little. Weird how much time has changed
They build Opel in Eisenach today. VW got Zwickau (where the Trabant was build). The Wartburg was the more luxury car build in East Germany. (the later one was also exported to western countries like GB)
And you are right about the upkeep, somehow. There where never enough spare parts and you need many from some parts on a 2 stroke, they wear out badly. They had to run over decades because they never build enough and every car got a complete rebuild every 5 to 10 years to keep it on the streets.
Oh and used cars could more expensive than new ones, no wait list you know. A Trabant "station wagon" pretty much new could go for 60k Mark (average income was around 2k a month for a family). Some people like craftsmen or if they build their own home did pay that.
Cool to see our classic cars even in the USA :)
I love the piano!
I have seen some wartburgs in greece and wherever we discuss about 2 stroke engines always someone mentions wartburg
Good lord!!...how on earth does Wartburg become Wurdburg. In euro retaliation, I shall hens forth pronounce WalMart - Wull-Murt!! LOL. Thanks for a great show by the way - Much appreciated.
OMG... my dad was going to buy a Wartburg Knight back in the 70's. I'm so glad he didn't.
I did! Got it in '69. It was actually pretty good looking, rather big for a 1000cc car. Here in the UK at the time we used to have what was even then a real anachronism called the Morris Minor, much smaller car, and also 1000cc. The Knight with its 2-stroke torque would blow the Minor into the dust on acceleration.
4:35 You can turn on/off the "freewheel" with a switch below steering wheel.
Still looks better both in and out than most modern cars. would buy.
I would be interested to see how it would work with a modern 2-stroke engine. Ashless 2-stroke oil has come a long way and is much more lubricating nowadays, so you can mix less of it with the fuel and still get adequate lubrication. Also a catalytic converter would help a lot; my Mazda RX-8 burns oil by design -- plain old motor oil, not even the fancy ashless oil made for 2-stroke engines -- and the exhaust is still smoke-free, though there is a little soot that builds up on the rear bumper over time.
that clattering you sound is probably the engine idling, since wartburg fitted their cars with a freewheel to protect the engine
My mom used to drive a DKW Junior . I instantly thought of it when I saw that engine
Owned a wart berg knight for 8 years -fun and reliable
As a east german i like that people actually know a thing about the "pretty" Wartburg. The newer ugly boxy version of this thing drives on the same chassis and was a constant sight on DDR streets....
What is that music? Its sooo awesome :)
The seats look like a big part of the suspension. ;)
Deadass car 🅱️
Car without Chassis? nah, 🅱️ONELESS.
I notice the owner has a 2nd gen Subaru Leone wagon in his driveway. I have one just like it, same colour and all.
Good review ... for an American 😉 Quite often, those cars are taken completely out of their context and measured by today's standards, which of course is nonsense. That hasn't happened here, so well done!
The Wartburg 311 is from a time, when people in East Germany were still ambitious and wanted to show the world what they were able to achieve. Later on, this attitude was kind of choked by a lack of basic materials (partly due to mismanagement, but partly also due to embargoes imposed on East Germany by Western Bloc-countries) and political disillusionment.
Americans are amazingly ignorant about two stroke technology. I mean you haven't had a rush till you've driven an old 80's 80cc or 125cc two stroke dirt bike made for competition like a Yamaha YZ80 from the 1980's (Later models are nothing close), water cooled with no fan whatsoever, no key and no starter. Two strokes get part of their compression from the exhaust shock wave reverberating on the inside of the exhaust and coming back to push otherwise lost fuel/air mixture inside the cylinder, so you accelerate linearly and it feels like a rev happy four stroke until you hit that magic RPM number. Then, you gain 2 to 4k RPM instantly and power increases by half in less than half a second. The bike immediately wants to do a wheelie and you have to anticipate and lean over it otherwise you'll flip right over with an 80cc bike (can't imagine what the 125cc and 250cc's are like). At this point RPM pretty much stays the same, that is screaming and feeling like you're riding the bike to low earth orbit but that you won't reach it because it's about to explode or fall apart.
These things are basically death traps, here in France insurance companies won't insure them any more because of how many young people killed or maimed themselves and others whilst possessed by the demon of blue smoke and hot steel.
Apparently part of the old IFA group survives. A micro utility vehicle called Multicar is still built by the company. They may still own Wartburg.
What's that thing under the hood had a toy aeroplane with rubber band looks the same.does it have pedal assist for steep hills.like the puch motor bike.thats a cheap 190 sl.
Saab had three cylinder two strokes also. with overhead fan shaft. I have a drag strip trophy i won with my brother's Saab in 1963.
My dad used to own one with a closed roof in black for about 10 years. He has bought it from somebody in Eastern Germany and sold it to someone in Western Germany - it didn't travel that far.
It is a Cabriolet! Was it originally exported to the U.S. or after the fall of the wall? These have been custom made by famous former coachwork companies in the East of Germany . Like former Glaeser from Dresden or former Kathe from Halle.
So these have been produced only 6000 at total between '59 and "62
Did you guys take a video of Air Berlin for a specific reason relating to east Germany or was it just a Coincidence?
The interior could be some polymer akin to bakelite. Even the bodies in some cars like trabant were made of similar type resin mixed with recycled cloth.
Do you remember te tasteless models of the American cars end '50 beginning '60? How safe were those tasteless cars??
Music was PERFECT.
The piano had me in tears. Did you hire a cat to play it?
I've been trying to listen but you wouldn't shut up. :)
engine with 7 moving parts: cranckshaft, 3 pistons, 3 bits that conect the pistons to the cranckshaft which name i can not remember. what about the butterfly valve on the carburator? doesn´t that count? :D
Anyone know how maintain this car's engine? it's a two-stroke? I want to import the 353 but this car, would I even be able to even fix it if it broke down?
I remember when I was a kid my parents had the station of that Warburg 311.
Fender mirrors are great if you have a friend to help you adjust them. Less of a blind spot that way.
I'm from East Germany and my parents had such a Wartburg 311 in the 70s. Yes, and the model IFA F9 was the predecessor of the 311 ... that was basically the East German VW Beetle. But in a Wartburg you at least still feel that you are driving a car that weighs over a ton. There is nothing with power steering and disc brakes. 😁 But at least the Wartburg 313 Sport got a beauty award at a car show in New York! 😮 And the East German super luxury sports version of the Wartburg 353 was then the Melkus Wartburg RS1000 .. or also called the socialist Porsche or zones Ferrari. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melkus_RS_1000