The

IFA IFA or Ifa may refer to: Organisations Economics * Independent financial adviser, a type of financial services professional in the UK * Index Fund Advisors * Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, representing actuaries in the UK * Institute of Ac ...

F9, subsequently rebadged as the EMW 309, is a compact saloon manufactured under the auspices of the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

states between 1949 or 1950 and 1956. It was initially built at

Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ' ...

at the plant previously owned by

Auto Union Auto Union AG, was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today. As well as acting as an umbrella firm f ...

. In 1953 production was transferred to the EMW, former BMW manufacturing plant at

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

under the name ''EMW 309'' until 1956 where its underpinnings subsequently found their way into the

Wartburg 311 The Wartburg 311 was a car produced by East German car manufacturer VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach from 1956 to 1965. The 311 model was manufactured in a number of variations, including pickup, sedan, limousine, coupé, and as a two-seat roadster. The ...

Origins

Mechanically the F9 derived from the

DKW F8 The DKW F8 is a compact front-wheel drive two-stroke engined saloon, introduced in 1939.Odin, L.C. ''World in Motion 1939 - The whole of the year's automobile production''. Belvedere Publishing, 2015. ASIN: B00ZLN91ZG. The F8 was slightly shorter ...

which had been available between 1939 and 1942. The body closely followed the design of the

DKW F9 The DKW F9 was the prototype of a car Auto Union intended to launch as a successor to the DKW F8. The small DKWs were among top selling small cars in Germany in the 1930s, and regular model updates were part of the company's strategy for main ...

, a prototype with which

would have replaced the F8 on the Zwickau production lines earlier, had the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

not intervened. After the war, the first car assembled at Zwickau was the prewar

, but the more modern F9 started to appear in 1949 or 1950 (sources differ). Materials shortages probably delayed introduction in both German states, but the eastern car beat the western to the market, and certainly featured the three-cylinder motor from the 1938 F9 prototype (rather than the two-cylinder motor that had been in serial production in 1942) at least three years before

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

were installing it in their F91. The Western group, however, had access to the original F9 body tooling which had been ordered before the war and had been produced but neither delivered to Zwickau nor scrapped, instead remaining at supplier Allgaier's facility in

Uhingen Uhingen is a town in the Göppingen (district), district of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. History Uhingen was a possession of the until 1332. Geography The city (''Municipalities of Germany, Stadt'') of Uhingen is locat ...

, Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The bodies

Surviving F9s appear largely restricted to saloon versions, but various sports and cabriolet versions were also produced. Steel for consumer industries was in short supply across many parts of Europe during this period, and the F9’s body construction increasingly involved plastic panels, especially after production was moved to Eisenach in 1953. The car was accordingly usefully lighter than its western built Auto Union equivalent.

Technical

The F9 featured a three-cylinder

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...

water-cooled engine of 910 cc with a claimed output, at launch, of . The engine was water-cooled, the radiator being located behind the engine, an unusual configuration but one also found on the

DKW F91 F91 may refer to : * F91 Dudelange, a football club, based in Dudelange in southern Luxembourg * ''Mobile Suit Gundam F91'', a 1991 animated film * HMS Brazen (F91), a 1981 British Royal Navy Type 22 frigate * HMS Murray (F91), a British Royal Navy ...

. The front wheels were driven via a four-speed manual gear box with a free wheel. DKW Meisterklasse 1952

References

{{reflist IFA vehicles Compact cars Front-wheel-drive vehicles 1950s cars Cars introduced in 1949