Erich Honecker’s secret EMW prototype found

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It is known that former DDR leader Erich Honecker (1912-1994) had a real taste for cars. In a country where ordinary people had to wait 20 years to buy a Trabant, the East German leadership notoriously bought a fleet of Volvos with extended wheelbase. Although these were perhaps not the lavish limousines you would expect them to be. One report wrote: “There's no mini-bar, no television, not even bullet-proof glass or tinted windows. If your bodyguard sits opposite you there's not too much legroom either.”

But what most people of the DDR didn’t know, was that these weren’t Honecker’s only cars. There was also a number of coachbuilt Range Rover hunting cars, much-modified in convertibles with extended wheelbase by Rometsch of Berlin. Even more amazing is the car that has come to the light now. Badged as an EMW for Eisenach Motor Werke – the East-German BMW counterpart – it is believed to be a concept for a luxurious limousine from the east as commissioned by Erich Honecker. Remarkably, the car appears to have been based on a 1981 Mercedes S-class with 5-litre V8 engine – the quintessential limousine from West-Germany at its time.

Much of the car is still shrouded in mystery though, as it remains unknown who carried out the conversion. It seems likely that Rometsch must have been responsible for this car also, like the Range Rovers. But the car comes with very little provenance and nothing in the paperwork can be traced back to its coachbuilder. It is believed never to have been road registered although the odometer read out just over 2,400 kilometres. Fact is that the EMW prototype passed into the hands of a German collector after the collapse of the communist state in 1989. This man, who wishes to remain anonymous, kept it into his underground garage for the last 30 years together with many more classic cars. Since he is thinking of selling his collection, he contacted the German Technical Museum in Berlin, which own a number of Honecker’s Volvo’s plus one of the Range Rovers. The museum is now looking for more provenance. Any information would be highly appreciated.

UPDATE 2 April 2019: Yes, it was that day in the year again - April's fool day...

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture G. Thiesen)

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