"Klaus Schmoll" (klausschmoll)
10/30/2013 at 18:39 • Filed to: automotive history
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"Klaus Schmoll" (klausschmoll)
10/30/2013 at 18:39 • Filed to: automotive history | 0
| 3 |
In this video, German actor Uwe Steinle shows us his vintage cars. He plays a police inspector in the longest lasting and most popular crime tv show in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Tatort (literally "crime scene") started in 1970 and still runs every sunday night.
He has a Wartburg 312 Camping which is a rare model, as they were only made in '65 and '66. After developing the all-new 353, the tooling for the body wasn't ready (planned economy at it's finest) so they put the old bodies on the new frame and chassis. This 312 looks like the quirky old 311 but already has a fully independent suspension with coil springs instead of leafs.
The "Camping" model with it's sunroof was the top of the line wagon. There also was a "Kombiwagen" if one just wanted to haul stuff.
Little known fun fact: These details that we admire today come at a price, the sunroof and those raised side windows, that go into the roof, pose a threat to the structural rigidity of the body. The frame only reaches to the rear wheels. The boot area "hangs" on to the frame. The fancy windows and sunroof leave only a small strip of metal to hold it.
As these vehicles were the only cars a family had, they often had to double as a hauler for many heavy things, causing this thin strip to stretch or even tear and the bodies to sag. In a communist economy with long waiting lists for a new car, these vehicles usually underwent several refurbishments or restaurations. So it was business as usual to put new bodies on the frames of write-off cars after an accident, or if the brown plague had done it's work. These replacement bodies came without the sunroof. They still had the raised rear windows, but the roof was a straight piece of sheetmetal.
At the end of the video Steinle also shows his Skoda Felicia convertible, probably one of the flashiest cars in the Warsaw Pact states at that time, but that is to be adressed in a different post later on.
Raphael Orlove
> Klaus Schmoll
10/30/2013 at 18:51 |
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I found one of those Felicia convertibles outside of one of the TU Berlin's engineering buildings. Most phallic gearknob I've ever seen.
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Klaus Schmoll
> Raphael Orlove
10/30/2013 at 19:02 |
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Beautiful find!
I saw one in rural Bavaria last year. It's hard to see, but the windshield had a '50s style pinup girl sticker. Maybe this sexual thing is an ongoing theme?
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Raphael Orlove
> Klaus Schmoll
10/30/2013 at 19:10 |
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there's something about old, low-power convertibles