The undeniable allure of forbidden fruits –in the automotive world, an idea that carries great weight. Here are two to make that case, a pair of once-unattainable Iron Curtain goods posted to the Cohort by Tim Finn, and found at the Weird & Wacky Car Show in Portland, Oregon. The bright blue one is an early Trabant P50, East Germany’s rather well-known commodity. Next to it, a ZAZ-968M from the Soviet Union era, which looks to be a 1979-1994 model.
Let’s take a brief look at these two once inaccessible goods.
Whoever brought this P50 likes Trabbis in the most vintage of forms. Trabants were built from 1957 to 1991, but this one belongs to the very early ’57-’62 run that went by the P50 moniker; easy to tell, as its styling distinctly differs from the post ’63 update that became the model’s definitive look. Eastern Bloc vehicles had a reputation for being unrefined, basic and easy to work on, qualities that, on the surface, can sum up the Trabant.
What gets lost in that general assessment is that while, from a Western point of view, that feels true, these vehicles were created under economically-challenged circumstances, and were a result of that often disregarded trait of sophisticated thinking: What materials and how much of them you’ve got? And what can be done with those?
So, under the unassuming looks of these two, one can find nuggets of engineering interest and wisdom. Like the fact that the Trabant, as Paul mentioned previously, was a pioneer “of the engine-transmission configuration used in almost all FWD vehicles in the past 30 or 40 years or more.” Stuff we won’t delve deeply into in this post, but it’s been covered at CC before.
Power for the Trabant came via a 499cc 2-cyl. 2-stroke air-cooled engine driving the front wheels, and its body was made of detachable duroplast (a thermosetting resin plastic) panels, all riding on a steel frame. The 2-stroke’s displacement rose to 594cc in ’63, after which little got updated until after reunification gave them a VW-sourced 1L inline-4 (along other minor trim updates) for their final 1990-1991 run.
And yes, that’s a trailer hitch on the Trabant, and as long as your travels were leisurely, these did that job back in the day (with modest cargo, of course).
The ZAZ-968M was a product of ZAZ (Zaporizhzhia Automobile Factory, in Ukraine), and was an updated version of the 966-968 models that dated back to 1966. Style wise, one can think of several influences looking at it, from Renault, to yes, the Corvair. Is there a place that those Corvair genes didn’t influence?
At the rear sits a 4-stroke air-cooled 1.2L V4 engine with a magnesium alloy block, which came in 40HP and 50HP outputs through the years. This 968M features the updated looks and interior that define the 1979-1994 run. The ZAZ factory still runs in Ukraine, and today assembles a variety of makes, from Chevrolets to Chinese Cherys, plus TATA trucks and others.
The Trabant and ZAZ have been covered in more detail at CC before; posts that you can access below. A way to check them out, at your leisure, unless one happens to show up at your local car show.
Related CC reading:
1984 Trabant 601-S: The Other People’s Car From The Other Germany, Still Significant
Cohort Outtake: Trabant 601 – Ready To Tow
Curbside Tranbants: The Anti-1960 Plymouth
Zaporozeths ZAZ-965966/968 Models For Wounded Veterans
The Trabant will always remind me of the Car & Driver April Fools parody “Roto Trend” where the Trabant wins Car of the Year over the Saab 9000. Coincidentally, ever ad in the “issue” was for the Trabant. I wish I could find it.
Isn’t the ZAZ a copy of the NSU Prinz, one was East German the other West. Im sure they reverse engineered the NSU.
Not quite. The ZAZ had an aircooled V4 (not developed as a tank starter even if it was later used as one) based on but meant to improve on the VW engine, for instance the V configuration was intended to get the cylinders and their aircooling fins up out of the path of road (and off-road) debris. And the original ZAZ was more heavily influenced by the Fiat 600, this is a styling update.
My favorite car from Eastern Europe was the Skoda Rapid.
One of the best sports cars I saw on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Quickly, “Trabbi” became something of a synecdoche for “antiquated” or “obsolete”, the problem not so much what the Trabant was but what it didn’t become. In 1957, a P50 was in at least some ways a contemporary European small car with features like flashing amber turn-indicators while in the UK (then sort of an “advanced Western economy”), many manufacturers (including Rolls-Royce) still were fitting semaphore “trafficators”. If development of consumer products like the Trabbi had been allocated even a fraction of the resources allocated to weaponry, it would have been interesting to see what central planning might have produced (witness the rapid evolution of the EV under the aegis of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)). Even that however is misleading because when in 1976 a defector delivered into Western hands one of the MiG-25 (Foxbat) high-altitude interceptors the Pentagon had for years been watching with a mixture of awe and trepidation, it was found to be a curious mix of old and new and, while outstanding in the things at which it was good (speed and altitude), as an interceptor in the age of missiles it was of limited use although its sheer speed would allow it to evade combat if the circumstances looked unfavorable (the old battlecruiser vs battleship theory).
In communist era these cars looked very different, as these were the most important thing one could afford back then. So both of them looked like coming fresh from the assembly line. The cities in eastern block looked like ruins in 1989, but not so the cars. This changed in the 1990s when western cars were available, and eastern cars became practically worthless over night. I even remember once turning down a “Trabbi” Station wagon, even though I would have gotten it for free. Another time, we found a “Zapo” (ZAZ968 like this one here) at the junkyard. The engine looked brand-new, and the body was in perfect condition. But it was just lying there on a pile of scrap metal.
Working in Angola, I was exposed to Soviet era manufacturing curiosities. One of them I remember was the magnesium flashlight. It was a perfectly good flashlight – but magnesium? Who would waste magnesium on a flashlight? It was thick enough that it wasn’t even particularly light weight. Since magnesium also requires special coating due to the reactivity of the metal, I can only imagine the cost of the manufacturing process. The end result was a flashlight that was pretty comparable to a Maglite. No better, no worse from a functional point. But the cost of the materials and the process? WOW!
We nicknamed these Soviet era curiosities as “Bads”. Not because they didn’t work. But because the end product was worth less than the raw materials & process that went into making it. Still, if you need flashlights and have a surplus of magnesium versus a shortage of steel, I guess the end result made sense to someone.
Communist economics seemed a dark art to someone accustomed to working with western style manufacturing economics.
I like both of these and hope the P50 gets a restoration before it rusts away .
-Nate