I couldn’t help but notice the tow hitch on this Trabi shot by Tom T. Given its 594.5 cc two-stroke twin rated at either 23 or 26 hp, I’m going to assume it’s not exactly the ideal towmobile. But you make do with what you got, and back in East Germany, this is what you got, if you got what it took to buy one.
Before you start snickering, let’s not forget that the Trabi was one of the pioneers of the engine-transmission configuration used in almost all FWD vehicles in the past 30 or 40 years or more.
Specifically, the engine and transmission side-by-side, in a transverse position.The first to do that was the 1950 Goliath, and we paid our respects to it here.
The Trabant first appeared in 1957, so it was a few years behind. But the Trabis were made in quite large quantities, until 1990, when a 1.1 L fours stroke VW engine was grafted in for emission reasons. But by 1991, Trabant was kaput.
Roger Carr’s more thorough look at the Trabi, especially its composite body, is here.
What could be more fitting than a mismatched hood and right front fender on a Trabi?
There’s a high probability that it came from the factory that way, too.
Putting all it`s faults behind it-and there are many, it`s a fairly nice looking vehicle in the 2 door wagon form.
I agree, I find its lines to be really appealing. Something like this with a more conventional powertrain and built to western standards could have been competitive – it was certainly much more modern looking than much of what the British industry was doing in 1957.
Not really. The Trabant pictured was available from 1964. In 1957 you had the Trabant P50 which looked much more old fashioned & in line with contemporary British products.
Some pretty big panel gaps around the hood, fender, and driver’s door
What a perfect experiment in the way Communism worked. Take one country with a proud tradition in automobile manufacturing. Divide it into two parts. One part brought forth Mercedes-Benz’, Audis, BMWs. Even the lowly (VW) and the defunct (Borgward, Glas, etc) were quite good, as a rule, able to compete on their merits in markets all over the world. The other part (the part that had been home to the fabulous Horch) produced little other than Trabants and Wartburgs.
It is interesting that so few picked up on this powertrain configuration before the 1970s, so Trabant’s engineers were able to see something that most others could not.
For some reason, this car evokes a strong Crosley vibe for me, not so much in the shape of the car, but rather the whole industrial design approach.
In both cases, the cars are built with materials and use construction techniques that defer to low price rather than style. In addition, both cars embrace a similar “Cheap but cheerful” feel.
If you haven’t already done so, you must read Roger Carr’s comprehensive article about the Trabant. There were enough engineering resources to upgrade or completely replace the Trabi, some to Western standards. However, the government was unwilling to spend scarce financial and raw material resources, so these efforts were stillborn.
Google “Trabant prototypes”
It’s an object lesson in not letting national security run away with the entire national budget. By the end, East Germany was a crumbling country with a state-of-the-art wall.
+1, Security is one way to call it, surveillance and suppression of the population another.
Some might say the US is on the same path, complete with the state-of-the-art wall…
You could replace the engine with one of those V twins from Harbor Freight.
Perfectly usable for towing, just remember to pack some food because you’ll be on the road for a while. (image source: zeit.de)
A better condition twin to this car resides in Corvallis, Or
I was unaware that the name Trabant stood for Satellite. Here is one I shot last summer, sitting on a side street. Apparently it has seen some car show duty.
In the past couple of years I have seen a bunch of them around the DC area. Each year the Spy Museum in DC has a Trabant parade and 20 or 30 of them show up. Last year there was a Barkas van there too.
It seems that there is a surprising amount of Trabis in the USA.
I would not mind a Trabant 1.1 as it had a 4 stroke VW engine with a rear fuel tank, new suspension, a gas gauge and the shifter was on the floor