Decades of waiting, standardized products to the maximum and a centralized economy in which nothing escaped the controlling eye of the State. East Germany did not seem to be a place for a sports car that combined speed and design. However, at the time of the Berlin Wall, behind the Iron Curtain there was a Western-inspired vehicle intended for a few.
The Melkus RS 1000 cost four times more than the Trabant – a local icon – and was a masterpiece of scarcity engineering. Perhaps that is why it barely managed to exceed one hundred units manufactured before the company collapsed, shortly before German reunification. For posterity the legend of the communist Ferrari remained.
Heinz Melkus was covered by all the glory that a German pilot could achieve in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The immediate postwar years, already with limited funding for foreign travel, were followed by a time of restricted activity behind the Iron Curtain. So, before giving life to the communist Ferrari, Melkus string together triumphs in half a dozen countries, including his own and the Soviet Union. With the same ingenuity and skill he later jumped over government obstacles to build his sports car.
The cars with which he raced came from his small company, which adjusted to the prevailing needs: he turned other people’s parts and elements into his own creations. In 1969, under the guise of celebrating East Germany’s 20th anniversary, he crafted a two-seater coupe unlike any other.
There were 101 copies at a price only accessible to a small minority of Germans. Today they are coveted by collectors who can only soothe their Ostalgie, that particular nostalgia for the GDR, with copies taken from that different world.
Heinz Melkus was born in Dresden on April 20, 1928, in days when -although he had not risen to power- Nazism was already raging. In the terms in which life was at stake, Melkus and his countrymen were survivors. The city suffered a brutal bombardment that left more than 20,000 dead in 1945. The German division left Dresden on the Soviet-influenced side. Scattered in pieces of what it had been, it became the industrial center of the country.
Scarcity ruled. Automotive activity was not exempt from regulations that intruded on all aspects of life. Only two companies were authorized to manufacture vehicles: Sachsenring, owner of the Trabant, and Wartburg. This last firm was the one that provided the inputs with which Melkus built his own competition vehicles, signed with his last name since 1959. Those single-seaters planted the seeds of what would later be the only sports car in East Germany.
As a driver, Melkus won multiple titles in Formula 3, the reference category of motorsports in his country. He also tested himself in the Peace and Friendship Cup that brought together the best drivers from the Soviet bloc. He traveled to the USSR, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. He became one of the top winners, with crowns in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1972. He already ran with works of his brand, although what mattered were the national flag and the oriental brotherhood.
It was in another country, however, where he had an epiphany. Josip Broz’s regime, better known as Tito, was a particular dictatorship. He had broken relations with Joseph Stalin in 1948, after World War II, and had become close to the West. Perhaps from that third way, which was developed in parallel to the most ruthless political persecution, the English Lotus has escaped, which in Yugoslav lands inspired Melkus for his dream coupe.
However, he had to overcome the biggest obstacle: the GDR’s restrictions on automobile series production. To achieve this he was timely and generous in praise. He told authorities that racing was a “socially useful and necessary” activity and what better tribute to East Germany on its 20th anniversary than an innovative car on a par with Western ones. Clever, after a few changes to the initial design, the businessman got official permission for his communist Ferrari.
The work team was small. Together with his children and some collaborators, he set himself the goal of making twenty units per year. Production started in 1970. The car featured a fiberglass body mounted on a steel chassis.
It was equipped with an engine taken from a Wartburg, located at the rear. It had three cylinders and, initially, it reached 68 CV ​​at 4,500 rpm, although models with up to 102 CV were later developed. The gearbox was manual, with five gears.
One of the distinguishing touches was in the gull-style doors: both the driver’s and passenger’s doors opened upwards. The dimensions of the vehicle were another outstanding aspect: 4 meters long, 1.7 meters wide and 1.07 meters high, which is equivalent to saying that the driver was sitting 10 centimeters from the asphalt. The weight was only 690 kilos.
Its design -which could not go through wind tunnel tests- allowed it to accelerate up to 165 kilometers per hour, in its most lazy versions, and up to 210 kilometers per hour in the most advanced models. From the comparison in speed and design with its contemporaries comes the unique nickname of communist Ferrari. But neither in power nor in speed could it compete with the Italian, American and West German sports cars. They were still two different worlds.
The Melkus RS 1000 had several flaws. The height, rear-wheel drive and weight made its behavior unpredictable at high speed or on wet ground. Through imperfect isolation, the roar of the engine invaded the cabin. The independent suspension was too harsh, another headache for drivers.
The biggest difficulty was typical of the GDR: service and spare parts were almost impossible tasks to solve. As was the case with the Trabi, the owners of the Melkus became mechanics by obligation. They alone had to take care of the repairs, with frequent visits to the black market for cars. Even Heinz and his children operated underground to increase the power of their vehicles.
There was another challenge for those who were in a position to purchase this coupe. It is that the government forced them to sign up in a registry with a quite particular requirement: they had to participate in two automobile competitions per year.
Tortuous manufacturing and bureaucratic control meant that only 101 examples of the Melkus RS 1000 could be built. They cost around 30,000 GDR marks, well above the Trabant estate. But the waiting list was much shorter: barely two years, compared to the entire decade it could take to sit in the iconic little sedan.
The last copies hit the streets in 1979. The company went into receivership in 1984 and quickly went down in history. The popular demands in the streets, in addition to the economic crisis due to the imminent collapse of the USSR, anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and reunification (1991).
It enjoyed a brief revival in the new millennium. In 2006, Peter -Heinz’s son- brought out the Melkus RS 2000, a capitalist homage to the communist sports car: it had Opel and Volkswagen engines -two brands from the Federal Republic of Germany-, an aluminum chassis and it was sold on the market in exchange for 115 thousand euros. Fleeting, he did not have the charm of the original work, so the adventure lasted even less than that of the pioneer: just a few dozen units spread over three seasons.
Nothing like the communist Ferrari to savor nostalgia for East Germany. Collectors and fans know this, who are chasing the 80 still-existing copies with prices that are close to 60,000 euros. They are, for them, a unique piece of Ostalgie.
