The Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE) was an
automobile manufacturer in
Eisenach, Germany.
History
Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach
Heinrich Ehrhardt
Heinrich Ehrhardt (17 November 1840 in Zella St. Blasius – 20 November 1928 in Zella-Mehlis) was a German inventor, industrialist and entrepreneur.
Family
Ehrhardt's uncle was the successful locomotive manufacturer and inventor Johann ...
founded the Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach (FFE) in Eisenach on 3 December 1896 as a stock company. Initially, he produced
bicycle
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
Bic ...
s and
guns. After two years, he started to produce a motor car which he called the
Wartburg, a licensed model of the French
Decauville. The company was the third to manufacture cars in Germany, the first being ''
Benz & Cie
Carl Friedrich Benz (; 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929), sometimes also Karl Friedrich Benz, was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent-Motorwagen, Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical mo ...
'' and the second being ''
Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft''. His son Gustav subsequently took over the factory, which at the end of the 19th century employed 1,300 workers and was one of the largest in
Thuringia.
Reorganized as Dixi
In 1903, the Ehrhardt family withdrew from management due to financial losses and also because the license to build Decauvilles was revoked. The factory began building under the new name, Dixi, in 1904 with Willi Seck as chief engineer. The top model, the type U35, was introduced in 1907 and was soon recognized for its reliability and performance with 65
hp (48
kW) and a top speed of 85 km/h (53 mph).
During
World War I the company produced trucks and guns. Afterwards the factory suffered from
reparations with removal of equipment. In 1919, car production resumed with the company renamed as Dixi-Werke AG in 1920; but soon economic hardship forced a merger with
Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG. Another result of the economic downturn was a change in output, focusing on small cars. In 1927 Dixi produced the DA-1 3/15, a version of the British
Austin 7 built under licence.
BMW takes over
In November 1928
BMW acquired the ''Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach A.G. (Marke "Dixi")'' from the ''Gothaer Waggonfabrik'' bringing the independent existence of Dixi to an end and the Eisenach factory became the birthplace of car manufacturing by BMW. The Dixi continued briefly as the
BMW Dixi
The Dixi was the first car made by BMW.
Dixi was the brand name of cars made by Automobilwerk Eisenach (Eisenach car factory) starting in 1904. In the difficult economic climate of the 1920s the company found it hard to sell its 6/24 and 9/40 ...
but the renamed BMW-Factory Eisenach soon started making an updated version of the car called the ''
BMW 3/15 The BMW 3/15 was BMW's first car, produced in its first version as a "Dixi" between 1927 and 1929 and then, following BMW's acquisition of the Dixi business in October 1928, in three subsequent versions as BMWs from July 1929 till March 1932, when ...
PS'' dropping the Dixi name. By 1931, 25000 cars had been produced in a series going from DA 1 to DA 4. The DA-3, a sporting version, saw a re-appearance of the Wartburg name. In 1932 a new small car, the ''
3/20 AM-1'', was announced with independent suspension all round and an enlarged 788cc (48ci) engine.
In 1933 BMW started to develop bigger cars with 6-cylinder engines. The first car of which was the ''
BMW 303''. Later successors were the ''
BMW 315
The BMW 303 was a small family saloon produced by BMW in 1933 and 1934. It was the first BMW motor car with a six-cylinder engine and the first BMW motor car with the "kidney grille" associated with the brand. The platform developed for the 30 ...
'', ''
BMW 319'', ''
BMW 327'' and the elegant sports coupe ''
BMW 328
The BMW 328 was a sports car offered by BMW from 1936 to 1940, with the body design credited to Peter Szymanowski, who became BMW chief of design after World War II (although technically the car was designed by Fritz Fiedler).
Specifications
...
''.
In 1942 BMW moved its motorcycle production to Eisenach, freeing up space in Munich for air craft engines.
[The BMW Story, Horst Monnich 1991] The main product was the highly successful R75 .In 1942 regular automobile production was stopped because of
World War II and started to manufacture aircraft engines for the
Luftwaffe. By the end of the war about 60% of the factory had been destroyed.
After the War: EMW/BMW
After the war, Thuringia was part of the Soviet sector, and the factory became a Soviet Stock company named ''Sowjetische AG Maschinenbau Awtowelo'', ''Werk BMW Eisenach'' (Soviet Awtowelo Co., Eisenach BMW Works). Production restarted with the
BMW 321, of which almost 4,000 were made between late 1945 and 1950. A handful of
BMW 326s were made in 1946-7 and 161
EMW 325/3s (bucket car) were made in 1952. In 1949 the Eisenach works launched the
BMW 340 (a development of the
BMW 326 with modified front and rear bodywork) and the
BMW 327.
As long as the Soviets owned the company, BMW in Munich could not bring legal proceedings to protect its tradename. As the
Munich factory was not producing cars yet, all "BMWs" made from 1945 to 1951 are Eisenach products.
In 1952 the works were transferred to ownership by the East German government and renamed EMW or ''
Eisenacher Motorenwerk'' (see below). It continued type 327 production and further developed the type 340 as the
EMW 340-2 EMW may stand for:
* EMW Corporation, a Korea's electronics company, by KOSDAQ number in 079190.
*Eisenacher Motorenwerk, a former East German manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and one-time Formula One participant
*Elektro Mechanische Werk ...
. Production of both models ceased in 1955, by which time Eisenach had produced a total of over 21,200 BMW/EMW 340s and 400 BMW/EMW 327s. Total production of
four-stroke
A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...
automobiles between 1945 and 1955 was just over 30,800.
VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach
In 1945, AWE resumed production of the pre-war
BMW R35 motorcycle. This became the EMW R 35 in 1952, was modified as the R35/2 and later the R35/3 with
plunger rear suspension. Eisenach built just over 83,000 of the R35 and its variants before its motorcycle production ended in 1955.
In 1952, the Soviet owners handed the company over to the
German Democratic Republic, and it became a state-owned company. By that time BMW from Munich was able to secure its tradename,
logo, and typical double-nostril grille appearance, and started to produce cars again. The Eisenach company was renamed
Eisenacher Motorenwerk (EMW), its logo being a variation of the BMW logo, the blue quadrants replaced by red ones. EMW participated in the
1953 German Grand Prix
The 1953 German Grand Prix was a Formula Two motor racing event held on 2 August 1953 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It was race 7 of 9 in the 1953 World Championship of Drivers, which was run to Formula Two rules in 1952 and 1953, rather than t ...
. One year later it received its final name
VEB VEB may stand for:
* Venturing and Emerging Brands, a division of Coca-Cola
* Virtual business
* Venezuelan , currency of Venezuela between 1879 and 2007, ISO 4217 code VEB
* ' (German for "People-owned enterprise"), a state-owned workplace or est ...
Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE).
The first new model had a three-cylinder two-stroke engine, the
IFA 309. This was based on the
DKW F9 prototype that was developed in 1939, but not put into production. The manufacture of models derived from pre-war BMWs, finished at the end of 1955 (see above).
In 1956, the first
Wartburg (Type 311 and later the 312) was launched with a new design, but maintaining the DKW based
two-stroke engine. The
Wartburg 353, introduced in 1966, received a new body, but still used the two-stroke engine, now with a displacement of 1000 cc. Many new ideas were proposed by the engineers, but they were not accepted by the state authorities. Finally, in 1988, four-cylinder four-stroke engines produced by
Volkswagen were introduced.
Closure after reunification
The
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
of October 1990 meant the end for AWE, as due to its obsolete labour-intensive production assets it could not compete with modern Western German plants. However, locals wanted to save manufacturing jobs, and in March 1990
Adam Opel AG concluded a collaboration agreement with the plant. Things moved fast, and on 5 October 1990, AWE and Opel together opened an assembly line for the
Opel Vectra.
Guests at the accompanying celebrations included
Helmut Kohl.
[Geschichte Eisenachs ab 1990]
, accessed on 19 September 2012
The
Treuhand agency closed AWE in April 1991, but a good number of the employees found work in the newly created
Opel Eisenach factory, opened in a Western Eisenach suburb in 1992.
The former production site was used by an automotive parts company until 2018. While most of the factory has been demolished, one part (Building O2) has been preserved to house the Automobilbaumuseum Eisenach (Eisenach Car Museum).
Production table for cars manufactured 1898 - 1991
See also
*
BMW
*
Opel Eisenach
*
Volkseigener Betrieb
References
Car Museum Eisenach (German)
External links
Set of pictures of EMW 340Photos from the abandoned AWE factory UK-based official Wartburg, Trabant and IFA owners' club
{{Authority control
Volkseigene Betriebe
German companies established in 1896
1991 disestablishments in Germany
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Germany
BMW
Eisenach
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1896
Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1991
Car manufacturers of East Germany