What car is this ?

[bungeejumper]

A friend's father had the more modern Wartburg Knight, which included a freewheel. A rather noisy and smokey form of transport albeit cheap and simple:

Oh gosh, more memories of East Germany in the 1970s. The place was full of them, since that was where they were made. And then there were the Trabants, which were still going when I returned to Berlin at the end of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Those two strokes were mighty powerful for their size, although their torque bands weren't that great unless you tuned them to the limit. But the smoke! The joke in Berlin used to go that the massed ranks of Trabbies and Wartburgs would be there to provide visual cover for the advancing Soviet tanks when the evil day arrived.

The gear stick was on the steering column. Designed as a fuel efficiency measure and as means of protecting the engine from oil starvation due to the nature of 2-strokes, the device disabled engine braking; the car was able to coast whenever the throttle was released.

In the words of Dire Straits: "Standing on the throttle, standing on the brakes. In the groove, till you make a mistake"

BJ

[Redmires]

Quiz time again. What car is this ? The location is Hyde Bus Station probably in the 50's and it's odd that there are no buses in the shot. I have no connection to the car but found the picture on a local history site and it brought back very early memories of my childhood in the 60's.

Tameside! I Went to school in Tameside... AGS on Darnton Road...many years ago. I had a summer job in Hyde ...ahhh, memories!

I went to HGS (Hyde Grammar School). It was due to be demolished a couple of years ago so an old friend and I went back and managed to get a tour round before it was flattened. Shame, as it was a fine building, but now just a little housing estate.

[tjh290633]

I don't see how it's possible for a 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine to have only 7 moving parts.
Your definition of a ' moving part' must be very, very different to mine.
Can you list the 7 parts ?

As Kiloran has said above, crankshaft, 3 con rods and 3 pistons. You can nitpick about gudgeon pins, piston rings, bearings, flywheel, etc., if you like, but I am only repeating what Herman said about his car.

TJH

[ReformedCharacter]

I don't see how it's possible for a 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine to have only 7 moving parts.
Your definition of a ' moving part' must be very, very different to mine.
Can you list the 7 parts ?

As Kiloran has said above, crankshaft, 3 con rods and 3 pistons. You can nitpick about gudgeon pins, piston rings, bearings, flywheel, etc., if you like, but I am only repeating what Herman said about his car.

TJH

Agree that moving parts can be interpreted differently, but:

The Wartburg 353 was the creation of the former German BMW production facilities (called EMW under Soviet occupation). It was developed from a 1938 DKW design, and powered by an engine with only seven major moving parts, crankshaft included. This led to a common aphorism among Wartburg owners that "one simply drives a car, but must only maintain a motorcycle".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_353

RC

[scottnsilky]

If I'm not mistaken, the model is 3-6 Sonderklasse, the registration is a local Manchester one, N started in June 1959, so probably this car would be 1960. A friend of my father had one, I can remember it standing on our drive, on one of his visits, though goodness only knows how I remember that from nearly 60 years ago. Why did he buy such an uncommon car, I wonder, he wasn't much of a car enthusiast, he had a Morris 1100 when he died.

DKW was part of Auto Union, one of the four rings of the badge seen on Audis today. Before the war, they built Austin 7s under licence and I think called them the Dixie, whilst after the war, as post war reparations BSA acquired the rights to one of their motor cycle designs, and called it the Bantam, and made an awful lot of money from it.

Like the Saab and the Wartburg they had a water cooled engine, though whether it used a pump or not, I don't recall. Possibly they used the thermo-syphon system, like side valve Fords. I certainly should know about the Saab engine as I was a Saab fan for decades. I remember breaking down in my Saab V4 when the water pump failed, but not relevant!

As for the secondary subject of the thread, reminisces of Hyde, I too, have a connection. My first job after leaving school, I was posted to Hyde depôt as junior engineer for Manchester Corporation Water Works, at the time of the trial in Manchester of the Moors murderers, Brady and the woman whose name I forget. One national newspaper called Hyde, an s-bend with chip shops! Unfortunately, Hyde has a more recent grisly history with the local GP, Shipman,who killed hundreds of his patients.

I was in Hyde in February, and looked in on my old work place, amazingly it is still standing, but empty. I thought it would have been sold for a housing estate. A black mark for UU Estates department, why keep it?