The RGW-Auto car was a never realized car of the lower middle class, which was planned as a joint project of the CMEA countries under the leadership of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and the ČSSR (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic).
The car, known as the P760 (also known as the 610 M), was to replace the Trabant 601, the Wartburg 353 and the Škoda 100. The planning started in January 1970 for the P760 was a major reason for the termination of work on the Trabant model P603, which was planned as the successor to the P601. After the failure of the RGW P760 in April 1973 and the likewise canceled follow-up project P1100 / 1300 1979, the development of new passenger cars came to a standstill in the GDR.
P760
At the beginning of the 1970s, the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) leadership with regard to automobile production increasingly pushed for cooperation between the CMEA partner countries. Political advances in this direction had already taken place in the early 1960s. This plan was based, to organize the production of cars of labor, yielding a more efficient mode of production than in the mutually-making enterprises expected in the market economy. Individual assemblies should be manufactured in each participating country. In 1966 there were functional models of the Trabant 603 in the GDR, the development of which was stopped on the instructions of the Politburo in order to make the existing capacities available to the P760 project.
The P760 was the basis for the RGW-Auto. Since January 1970, plans have been drawn up for this lower middle class vehicle. The production should be divided among the participating countries for each module. However, there were considerable differences between the two main partners, the GDR and the ČSSR, regarding basic design features. For example, the GDR leadership favored front-wheel drive. Finally, four functional models were built, which were tested from 1972. However, since not only the individual countries competed for suitable concepts, but also individual German plants (the automobile plants in Zwickau and Eisenach), the RGW-Auto project was too confusing and in a Politbüro resolution of April 7, 1973, it was put on the file as “not ready for decision”.
