Ending up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain for the builders and lovers of fine cars sucked. A number of Germany’s premier automakers were based or had plants in what became the GDR/DDR (East Germany), but life was not going to be the same, given the lower incomes. Initially, the Eisenach BMW factory kept producing some pre-war BMWs (later EMWs). But lack of sales and state diktat ended that in 1955, and Eisenach was switched over to making two-stroke Wartburgs.
Oddly enough, just a couple of years earlier in 1953, the Horch factory, which once built splendid luxury cars before the war, was told to develop and build a new home-grown luxury car. So they did, but not surprisingly, sales were as dismal as the rest of the DDR economy, and it was killed off after a few years. But then a few more were ordered up in 1969, strictly as a parade-mobile. Of all the communist era parade-mobiles, the Repräsentant has to be the saddest by far. It looks just like one of those little fiberglass kiddie-ride carousel cars, right down to the cheap plexiglass windshield.
Horch, the top-tier brand in the Auto-Union federation, built some of the finest luxury cars in Germany prior to WW2, like this exquisite 853 Cabriolet. Unlike the BMW factory in Eisenach, the Horch factory didn’t even attempt to re-start production of its pre-war cars in its heavily damaged factory in Zwickau. And quite likely much of its production equipment was hauled off to Russia, as reparations.
Instead, this is what they built, the Pionier RS01 tractor. Quite the come-down, and no Horch genes in it. But food was more important.
As well as re-building. So Horch also built this equally un-luxurious H3 truck. Priorities had changed, and the market for luxury cars was dead (presumably a large portion of the BMW/EMW output went to Russians, who had a thing for Mercedes and BMWs even back then).
But Horch also built the IFA P2 military 4×4, which actually did have some genuine Horch genes. Its engine, a lovely 2.4 liter OHV inline six, had been fully developed by Horch before the war and intended for a smaller Horch, but was not put into production because it was deemed to not be quite as silky smooth as Horch’s legendary inline eights. Such were the glory days of the Third Reich. But the Horch OM6 engine was revived and powered a whole series of these DDR “Jeeps”.
image via Wikipedia
In 1953 the word from up high (or via the latest five-year plan) that Horch was to develop a new six cylinder luxury car. Oh joy! But it was to be a wee bit more modest than the old Horchs of yore; the new P24 was to use the 2.4 L OM6 engine, and sit on a 110″ (2800mm) wheelbase chassis.
Initially called Horch P240, the ‘Sachsenring’ name was added starting with full production in 1955. As of 1957, the storied Horch name, and the “H” emblem on the hood had to be dropped altogether, due to litigation from Auto Union in West Germany (Horch had been part of the Auto-Union conglomerate). From then on, it was just the Sachsenring P240. This black four-door convertible is from 1956, the first series.
The four door convertible was of course built primarily for this purpose, here showing off Russia’s astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space, to eager East Berliners in 1963. Ich bin ein Berliner too!
If you aspired to a Sachsenring, you were probably in the front few rows. If you aspired to a Wartburg, you were in the middle section. If you aspired to a Trabant, you’d be up in the nose-bleed section. If you weren’t there to smile and cheer for the Stasi photographers at all, you obviously didn’t aspire to any sort of car.
The ambitions for the P240 sedan were quite high and totally unrealistic, in terms of sales. The production goal for 1956 and 1957 was 15,000 cars. As it turned out only some 1,382 P240s were built over its total production life from 1956 – 1959. Oh well, the precious 12 million DDR Marks invested in the plant to gear up for P240 production turned out to be a waste. So much for the planned economy. Not surprisingly, the few P240s built all went to party bigwigs and others associated in favorable ways to the party bigwigs. This one does rather stand out against the duller and drearier Wartburgs and such next to it. The DDR Buick.
In the end, it was cheaper to just buy Volgas and Chaikas from the USSR, and the plug was pulled in 1959. And in the 70s, the DDR bosses took a shine to Volvos, since Sweden was a neutral country.
So much for that brief foray back into luxury cars. The former Horch plant now churned out the Trabant, a fitting companion to the Pionier tractor and the H3 truck.
But in a very odd move (and outcome), the word came down in 1969 to build five new P240s for the People’s Army. More likely, it was just a re-bodying of some older P240s. This was in association with the 20th anniversary of the DDR, and the unfortunate result was called Repräsentant. Representative of something other than good taste, obviously. Rarely have I seen a sadder excuse for a parade-mobile.
It was even trotted out again for the 25th anniversary, in 1974. Those guys look like they’re about to bust out of it. Or maybe they’re just exceptionally well-fed comrades. Either way, these look pretty pathetic. The 1956 version was a lot closer to a Mercedes 300 than this was to a Mercedes 600. Got to love those black wheels and hubcaps, which are straight from the first version, and worked on it; not so much in 1974.
I do hope that not too many of the folks who designed and built the Horch 853 were still around when the Repräsentant was designed and built. There were a lot of indignities with ending up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, but that’s a bit too much.
Related reading: Trabant: The Other People’s Car from the Other Germany
These on the pics on the military parade in year 1974 looks like an ordinary two-stroke Wartburgs with some minor cosmetic changes 🙂
…and if having some material about the eastern-german “jeep” the Trabant Kübel…I think that should be also an interesting article…
Now that would be a fun ride in summertime!
During sommertime some car enthusiasts are driving occassionally their Kübelwagens… I can see them on the roads every year in that period of time. Some other folks took on the idea and they have established a cheap Rent-a-Trabant kinda company with few Trabant estates and 2-doors… I really don’t know how successful their business is.
I wonder whether that was deliberate, maybe to make the Wartburg seem more desirable. Sorta like “Look Dieter, the super-comrades are riding in one!”
I had travelled as a passenger in a Wartburg 353 4-door (naturally in a 1000ccm 2-stroke one) as a jamaican buddy of mine from the university had bought one for himself. I remember when he drove that car to the parking lot of the campus as it just came out from a bodyshop with finished sheet metal job. At the same moment he asked me to helping him to do the coating and partial painting of the undercarriage/bottom plate… We did it within a day. From that moment he became a proud Wartburg owner until we had received the diploma and left the campus. That had happened in the early ’90’s. It was quite fast. We often travel with it on the autobahn and reached 140kph [on the slopes of course] 🙂
Wish I could unsee that Repräsentant. Gonna have bad dreams now.
Maybe the old Horch or DKW designers were still around, and decided to get their revenge on wooden-headed bureaucrats who didn’t know they were being mocked.
Not great I admit, but I don’t think they look *that* bad.
The car seems to Represent a four door coffin with a windshield.
No wonder they went with Volvos.
Sachesenring P240 – I like it. It is the Communist Buick but the way that it looks it might be more like the Communist Nash… 😉
actually, the first association that came to my mind was the Toyopet Crown Custom.
As everyone knows, “Repräsentant” is German for “Rambler.”
The Rambler is seriously insulted.
It looks a parade limo for the mayor of some fantasy midget town from the Wizard of OZ. I think thats the car Papa Surf was riding in when someone tried to assassinate him….
Though that black and white street photo with the 2 tone sedan is so deliciously “cold war” it makes me want a trench coat and a hat. Excuse me, I need to go retrieve some microfilm…..
P240 looks presentable anyway
I always think it would have quite of sense of humor if driving a typical communism era classics car ( if still drivable and presentable ) in a cruise full of Fury and Thunderbird, especially one like a Wartburg or Trabant
The 2 tone car doesn’t look so bad but the black convertible makes anything by BL look great.
From a country that uses the word “Democratic” in it’s name(but isn’t)….a “luxury” car that looks like the box they MIGHT bury you in, if you were dirt poor.
I once owned an Audi but very rarely have seen pictures of the brand’s pre-war road cars. That 853 looks almost like a French interpretation of a Mercedes-Benz SSK. What a comedown for the brand.
There appears to be some general rule that if a country has the word “Democratic” in its name, it isn’t.
I hate to admit it, but the old Volksarmee had some pretty cool-looking uniforms!
The commies didn’t do household goods and cars well, but military technology, architecture and aerospace stuff was often quite impressive. No shame in liking some commie glamor. In fact, these days it’s us Westerners who can appreciate some of the aesthetic value of the “old days,” especially with regard to the buildings.
It’s all a matter of priorities. The DDR was in the unenviable position of trying to build communism WHILE paying reparations–the Soviets suffered far more than the Americans ever did in WW2, so while I think it was very stupid of them to impose punitive measures on their client states, I guess I can’t really understand the extent of their rage. I’m not sure it’s fair to judge the DDR on their cars, especially given that by design, there would never be anyone rich enough to buy high end cars, and the associated trickle down of their technology. A lot of former East Germans–though certainly not all–would go back to garbage Trabbis and the sense of community and solidarity they felt in what they thought were bad times.
Oh yeah–I’m supposed to be talkin’ cars. Whoops. That Sachenring P240 has a Japanese look to its front end. Rather cute, though “cute” was quite likely not the goal.
Oh wow, the Repräsentant – from it’s bumper-car grille treatment to its’ back-of-the-brochure-strippo steelies with whitewalls to….wow.
Was the goal to make the Trabis available to the general public look good by comparison?
The only thing I can imagine with the Reprasentant would be that the designers had orders to come up with a body that would absolutely disappear when dignitaries were in the car. Problem is, it disappears without them, too.
Wow, I’ve actually never heard of these or the Repräsentant before. The Sachenring P240s weren’t actually that bad looking, as far as Communist-era Eastern European cars go. The parade-mobile obviously excluded.
Most people will not know anything about Horch.
Erdmann & Rossi were coach builders and produced some of the most beautiful high-end cars ever made, probably the most beautiful.
In many ways better styled than Bugatti.
Search the net for these cars and you will find something very, very special.
In light of the Horch past and glory the cars pictured here are an insult to the company, so sad.
The company Erdmann & Rossi still exist carried on by the grand-son.
Howard Kerr,
as far as i know the only book on the cars is by Dalton Watson.
Extremely rare book but it is extensive on the coachbuilt Horch cars. When i found the book i was awestruck and lapsed into depression knowing that i will never own any of these cars, probably never see one but it raises the bar in auto haute couture to dizzy heights!
Beyond dreams or perhaps earthly reality.
Any other books on Horch??
call me odd, but from the pics, I dig the black convertible, though not as much as the Buick-wannabe.
The Jeep thing ( IFA P2 miltary 4×4) looks O.K. to me .
Funny how the mannikins look just like not every communist leader in news photos but also like the ding bat communists we have running around Los Angeles , always trying to create hate and violence .
” Repräsentant ” : ? really ? _this_ POC is what you want to represent your failed communist country ? . what a turd , I’m surprised it wasn’t painted brown .
I’d rather have the jeep or a Trabby . (? Trabbie ?) .
I don’t suppose any of those nice looking two tone ‘Buicks’ have survived , still not a pretty grille but overall , nice looking .
-Nate
That parade car could almost be an East German take on the Amphicar! It certainly would look more at home in a lake.
Preferably on the bottom, where it couldn’t be seen. 🙂
Cas.willoughby:
You are depressed? I’m depressed knowing that (thanks to you and another poster on another car) the are at least 2 VERY rare books that if I could find them….they are going to be quite expensive.
2 of my life’s “loves” are cars and books….and having spent/wasted a lot of money on cars, I now find I don’t have much money left for books.
Nice feature Paul, and it’s interesting to see the context of the engineering of these cars and their political conext, and a good counterpoint to the Trabbie feature we’ve just run. East Germany really was a very very odd place, with some very dark and unpleasnt practices and overtones.
The convertible really has some Wartburg overtones, but that is not a compliment.
Very interesting piece on a car I knew nothing about–always thought Horch didn’t survive the war. I wasn’t aware they had this brief postwar product. The P240 isn’t beautiful, but it’s not unattractive either, and quite a bit better than anything else you could get in the DDR at the time.
That Reprasentant though…wow. It does have some distinct “bumpercar” overtones, plus the chintzy windshield and hubcaps, and almost total lack of trim, take it from bad to worse.
The grille looks somewhat Tatra-inspired to me though, sort of like a 603-3:
Now those Czechs did cars right!
Maybe not so much the ones that built Skodas though…..
I like the Repräsentant. It looks different, modern, and it’s lack of luxury details makes sense to me, as a car for what the Socialist state was supposed to represent.
Agree. But they had also Chaikas and the top of the line ZIL 111 sorta ultra luxury V8 limousines as well…
Design students, welcome to your final examination.
Your theme is to design a prestige parade limousine for a country whose ideology and philosophy is diametrically opposed to the very concept of prestige – in theory, at least.
Your time starts now!
This is all new to me. What a depressing end for Horsch, their prewar stuff seems so impressive.
If ever there were a perfect experiment to contrast the differences between European capitalism and communism, it was Germany. Same population, same geography, same industrial and agricultural history, but completely different outcomes. Mercedes-Benz and Horsch seems to say it all.
Well, there were also some key differences. The bulk of Germany’s industries were located in the west, which is also where their coal and steel sources were. Also, W Germany was about twice the size of East Germany, and the population disparity was even more disparate (1950: WG: 51 million; EG: 18 million.)
And whereas the US helped W Germany industry get back on its feet, the Russians made things much more difficult in the East with severe de-industrialization and massive reparations.. It’s a difficult comparison because there were so many differences. But obviously, the resources and political system in the West was much more conducive to growth.
You are very well informed Paul. When the wall came down those 18mill East Germans lost subsidised housing and public transport and a job for life. Hard working and skilled but used to downing tools at 5 o’clock. No such thing as fixed delivery times in the DDR … Cultural shock for them when likes of Opel took over the Wartburg plant for example.
Leave it to the Italians to do it with style.
Finally I caught up reading this article. Again, excellently researched.
My first thought about the Repräsentant was: now I know where Bangle got his idea for the Bangle Butt.
The Reprasentent looks like a car that would not look out of place on a carousel or a kiddy ride. Also, when I saw that black and white photo of the Trabis leaving the factory, I almost heard the “Imperial March”from “The Empire Strikes Back” in my head.
(My English is poor, please focus on the content.)
Excellently researched? What a shame to compare a pre-war handmade coachbuilt multi-million Dollar single copy to a car, built just ten years after loosing WW2. What about the consequences of war? Why not to compare with Messerschmitt Kabinenroller, made in West Germany until 1964?
What you call “excellently researched” I call scribblet mainstream or what was the reason to talk about Yuri Gagarin, the first men into space but showing Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman into space?
How about Zündapp Janus, made in West Germany, which came into being in 1957?
Let’s compare the engine performance of a Horch Sachenring with a BMW Isetta, made in West Germany until 1962.
Instead of heroic winners, who start the fight a quarter century after the end of this communistic country it needs wealthy men to buy a Horch Sachsenring (not available below $100.000). There are many many samples to prove the superiority of a free enterprise economy but to break into applause for dragging a Horch P240 through the mire it needs a clueless audience.
From the first time I visited Poland in 1973, I have been fascinated by the cars and trucks of eastern Europe. Almost all are rubbish and no wonder. When living under Communism you have little to look forward to in terms of wants and needs. Waiting in a line for a kilo of meat for over a half hour does that to a person.
I can understand perhaps how dreary life would be for an East German car designer who probably had numerous bureaucrats hanging over his head providing their input into the design as a means of justifying their own job.
I think the black four door convertible and the two tone four door sedan are both very attractive for cars built in Eastern Europe in the communist era.
1st image reminds me of the Austin A105 Westminster, built from 1956 to 59′.
Thank you CC and Paul (and those posting comments!) for posting this, as I’ve mentioned before CC is one of the places – in the English language, at least – where the topic of East German vehicle history is discussed, and in detail. I just posted the article link on the Radio GDR Facebook discussion group, the members will appreciate it!