Trabant

Trabant
Manufacturer	VEB Sachsenring
Production	1957–1991
Body style(s)	2-door sedan (Limousine, Saloon); 2-door station wagon (Universal) There was also an army version

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In medieval German Trabant meant foot soldier or personal guard. ^[1]

For the Icelandic band, see Trabant (band).

The Trabant is an automobile produced by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Sachsen. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to countries both inside and outside the communist bloc. The main selling points were that it had room for four adults and luggage, and was compact, light and durable. Despite its mediocre performance and smoky two-stroke engine, the car has come to be regarded with derisive affection as a symbol of the failed aspects of former East Germany and of the fall of communism (in former West Germany, as many East Germans streamed into West Berlin and West Germany in their Trabants after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989). For advocates of capitalism it is often cited as an example of the disadvantages of centralized planning as even refueling the car required lifting the hood, filling the tank with gasoline (only 6.5 gallons), then adding two-stroke oil and shaking it back and forth to mix. It was in production without any significant change for nearly 30 years with over 3,000,000 cars made.

[edit] Overview

A Trabant 601 Limousine.

The name was inspired by Soviet Sputnik. The cars are often referred to as the Trabbi or Trabi, pronounced with a short a.

Since it could take years (usual waiting time 15 years) for a Trabant to be delivered from the time it was ordered, people who finally got one were very careful with it and usually became skillful in maintaining and repairing it. The lifespan of an average Trabant was 28 years.^[2] Used Trabants would often fetch a higher price than new ones, as the former were available immediately, while the latter had the aforementioned waiting period of mostly at least ten years. The street neighbouring the factory where lucky owners collected their new cars was called die Strasse der Sieger (Avenue of Winners) signifying that a delivery of new Trabi was a small victory over the Communist regime^{[citation needed]}.

There were two principal variants of the Trabant, the Trabant 500, also known as the Trabant P 50, produced 1957-1963; and the Trabant 601 (or Trabant P 60 series), produced from 1963 to 1989. (The Trabant 601 ended its production in 1991, after the introduction of a 1.1L VW engine in 1990 (see below)). The engine for both the Trabant 500 and 601 was a small two-stroke engine with two cylinders, giving the vehicle modest performance. At the end of production in 1989 it delivered 19 kW (26 horsepower) from a 600 cc displacement. The car took 21 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) and the top speed was 112 km/h (70 mph). There were two main problems with the engine: the smoky exhaust and the pollution it produced—nine times the amount of hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxides of the average European car of 2007. The fuel consumption was a modest 7 liters/100 km.^[3] (34 mpg (US), 40 mpg (Imperial)).

The Trabant was a steel monocoque design with roof, bootlid/trunklid, bonnet/hood, fenders and doors in Duroplast, a form of plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton. This helped the GDR to avoid expensive steel imports, but in theory did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it allegedly performed superior to some contemporary Western hatchbacks.^[4]^[5] The Trabant was the second car to use Duroplast, after the "pre-Trabant" P70 (Zwickau) model (1954–1959). The duroplast was made of recycled material, cotton waste from Russia and phenol resins from the East German dye industry, making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.^[2] 3,096,099 Trabants were made.^[6]

[edit] History

Trabant P50 built in 1959.

Trabant 601 presentation in 1963.

Trabant 1.1 model with VW Polo four-stroke engine.

Production of the last Trabants in 1990.

Originally planned as a three-wheeled motorcycle, the decision to build a four-wheeled car came late in the planning process.^[7] The name Trabant, Latin for "traveler" or "companion", was chosen in an internal contest in 1957, the year of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Previous motorcycle production at Sachsenring had been under the aegis of AWZ (Auto-Werke Zwickau).

The Trabant was a relatively advanced car when it was launched in 1958; with front wheel drive, a unitary construction, composite bodywork and independent suspension all around. The main letdown was the engine: by the late 1950s small cars in western countries mainly used cleaner and more efficient four-stroke engines, as employed in the Volkswagen, whereas the Zwickauans were budgetarily forced to use two-strokes. When released the Trabant was technically equivalent to the West German Lloyd automobile, which had an air cooled two cylinder four-stroke engine in the same size vehicle.

The Trabant's air cooled two cylinder 500cc (later 600cc) two-stroke engine was derived from a pre-war DKW design, with minor alterations being made throughout the car's production run. Wartburg, a GDR manufacturer of larger saloons, also used a DKW engine: a watercooled 3 cylinder 1000cc two-stroke unit, also found in earlier Saab cars.

In 1958 production began of the original Trabant, the P50. This car was the base of the Trabant series, and even the latest 1.1's had a large number of interchangeable parts with this car. The 500cc 18hp P50 evolved into a 20hp version in 1960, gaining a fully synchronized gearbox amongst other things, and finally got a 23hp 600cc engine in 1962, becoming the P60. The updated P601 was introduced in 1964. This car was essentially a facelift of the P60, with a different front fascia, bonnet, roof and rear, whilst retaining the original P50 underpinnings. This model stayed practically unchanged up to its production end, with the most major changes being 12v electrics, coil springs for the rear and a different dash for the latest models.

In 1989 a licensed version of the Volkswagen Polo engine replaced the elderly two-stroke engine, the result of a trade agreement between the two German states. The model, known as the Trabant 1,1 also had minor improvements to the brake and signal lights, a revised grille and replaced the leaf spring-suspended chassis with one using MacPherson struts. However, by the time it entered production in May 1990, German reunification had already been agreed to. The inefficient, labor-intensive production line was kept open only because of government subsidies. Demand plummeted, as residents of the east preferred second-hand western cars. The production line closed in 1991.

The Trabant's designers expected production to extend to 1967 at the latest, and East German designers and engineers created a series of more sophisticated prototypes through the years that were intended to replace the Trabi; several of these can be seen at the Dresden Transport Museum. However, each proposal for a new model was rejected by the GDR leadership for reasons of cost. As a result, the Trabant remained in production largely unchanged; in contrast, the Czechoslovak Škoda automobiles were continually updated and exported successfully. The Trabant's production method, which was extremely labor-intensive, remained unchanged.

Although Trabants had been exported from East Germany, they became well-known in the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall when many were abandoned by their Eastern owners after migrating westward. News reports inaccurately described them as having cardboard bodies. This is likely due to the fact that the body of the Trabant was Duroplast, a material that, in East German production, often made use of varying quantities of different fibers, such as cotton, or occasionally paper.

In the early 1990s it was possible to buy a Trabant for as little as a few marks, and many were given away. Later, as they became collectors' items, prices recovered, but they remain very cheap cars. Green Trabants are especially popular as they are said to bring good luck.

In the late 1990s, there were plans to put the Trabant back into production in Uzbekistan as the Olimp.^[8] However, only a single model was produced.^[9]

In 1997, the Trabant was celebrated for passing the "Elchtest" ("moose test"), a 60 km/h (37 mph) swerve manoeuvre slalom, without toppling over like the Mercedes-Benz A-Class infamously did. A newspaper from Thuringia had a headline saying "Come and get us, moose! Trabi passes A-Class killer test".^[10]

In 2007 Herpa, a miniature vehicles manufacturer in Bavaria, showed a scale model of the "New Trabi" and revealed that they planned to introduce it. They bought the rights to the name and plan to produce a series of 5,000 cars. It would likely have a BMW engine and be sold for around €50,000.^[11]^[12]

In 2007 the Trabant (P50 painted British Racing Green) was brought into the world of Diplomacy. Steven Fisher, the Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy of Budapest uses it as his diplomatic car for work.^[13]

[edit] Models

Trabant 601: A Kombi/station wagon version was also produced.

Trabant P50—later called Trabant 500 (Limousine and Universal [Combi])
Trabant 600 (Limousine and Universal)
Trabant 601 (Limousine, Universal and Tramp (Cabrio))
Trabant 601 S & Trabant 601 De Luxe (With optional equipment including rear and front fog lamps, rear white light and an additional odometer)
Trabant 601 Hycomat (Made for users with missing or dysfunctional left leg. It had included an automatic clutching system)
Trabant 800 RS (Rally version)
Trabant 1,1 (Limousine, Universal and Tramp (Cabrio))

The Painted Trabants used by U2 on their Zoo TV Tour hanging in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[edit] Trabant and car tuning community

Trabant has for its particularly archaic look and unique two-stroke engine sound become a beloved toy amongst car tuning community in central Europe.

Many variations exist although two major streams occur.

First stream meticulously preserves the two-stroke engine sound, while either tuning the original two cylinder engine to higher performance or uses two-stroke propulsion unit of other cars e.g. 1000ccm Wartburg. Since the car is very lightweight (approx. 750 kg), a small increase in engine power can rapidly increase its weight to HP ratio, giving it remarkable boost.

Second group goes beyond the sentimental sounds and alters starting from engine swap to completely upgrading the traction of Trabant leaving only the chassis to hide a modern powerful car underneath e.g. VW Lupo GTI of Sascha Fiss. The perplexed effect of being overtaken by post-modern Trabi above 150 km/h is worth all the effort.

Some cars with supercharged implants have rated power over 150HP, which including its light weight gives them performance of drag cars 5 kg/HP.

It has become an established tradition in central Europe that Trabant fan clubs organize annual meetings to introduce new increments in their collections.

[edit] Gallery

Trabant two-stroke engine	A Trabant with all-over advertising, used as a "billboard on wheels" in Prague	Outfitted for volunteer fire fighting service	This Trabant is technically an official police car, but is only used for public relations purposes.
A view inside the Trabant 601	A Trabant passing the Berlin Wall in 1990	Mural (post-Wende, on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery near Berlin Ostbahnhof	Mural on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in a Trabant (Spring 2002).
Trabant 601 in London 2007	Trabant 601 in Prague 2008	Trabant during First Annual DC Rally 2007	The mechanically simple, easily tuned engine makes Trabants interesting for low-cost rallying
Trabant as a racing car	Trabants Car Show in Aleksandrow Kujawski, Poland	Trabant modified to a stretch limousine	Trabant P1100 prototype