Wartburg-Mercedes 170V 1956 Blue/White

Wartburg-Mercedes 170V 1956 Blue/White by Autocult

Survivors with a new look  

As the ‘Iron Curtain‘ continued to rise after the end of World War II and the last surviving vehicles relics of the 1930s gradually were decommissioned in the fledgling GDR, the wave of uniform products desired by the state system continued to cover the country. For passenger cars this meant that the two-stroke Wartburg, initially produced in 1955, became the top model. Irrespective of the political requirements and the state policy objectives, the last copies of the Mercedes type 170 V were also still in use. The possession of one of those Mercedes models became an ever-increasing prestige value as socialization progressed.   In the privately run workshop of the Schwarze family in Görlitz, the idea was born to give some 170 V a second life by reassembling them completely new. With a lot of craftsmanship and improvisational skill, the tin craftsmen fitted the front of a 170 V body into the body of the Wartburg 311. The greatest attention was paid to the exact integration of the distinctive Mercedes radiator, which had to be shortened for its new use. Even today, employees of Schwarze company have to be attested that they implemented this mixture very skillfully for their back-then limited facilities. The original 1.7-litre four-stroke engine of the Mercedes 170 V ran unchanged underneath the front hood. Here, too, a high level of ingenuity may have been necessary to revitalize the aged Swabian drive, which already ran many kilometers. With its 38 hp at 3,200 rpm, the West German engine was as strong as the modern Wartburg engine, but the driver got the horsepower served from four cycles instead of two! With a top speed of 110 km/h, the mix of the two passenger cars was quite in line with the driving values of the time. From 1956 onwards, the privately devised conversion was mainly used by taxi companies of Görlitz.   It is not exactly known how many copies of this conversion the body maker Schwarze ultimately made. While some literary sources mention 20 copies others state ‘at least three dozen’. The production period of the private conversion extended to the threshold of the 1960s.