This week’s history article is about the Trabant – the classic small car from the other side of the Iron Curtain. It should really be classed as a sub-marque due to the way East Germany structured its businesses. After the Second World War had ended, the Horsch and DKW factories were taken over by the East German Government. The Iron Curtain was going up and Communism was … [Read more...]
DKW
DKW wasn’t the first car company to supply other manufacturers however their name certainly appears in the history books of many other companies. Not only did they become the worlds largest motorcycle manufacturer for a while but also their engines went into quite a few other manufacturers models. DKW was founded in 1916 by a Danish engineer based in Germany. Jorgen … [Read more...]
EMW (Wartburg)
Everyone has heard of BMW, whether its cars or bikes, but what about EMW? There was a relationship between them and I’ll explain later in the post. The story starts in 1896 when Heinrich Ehrhardt founded the Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach (FFE) to make bicycles and weapons. There must have been similar production processes between these two products as many companies did this – … [Read more...]
