With the 1960 Plymouth love being shown on CC this week, I thought it appropriate to show what land yacht-deprived East Germans were driving in the early ’60s. Finding any Trabant on the street is about as unlikely as finding a well-worn 1960 Fury, but time and time again, the CCC Corps delivers the goods.
Spotting a single Trabant anywhere in the US takes some doing. Finding three of them approximately 45 years after they were built is even more remarkable. As Cohort Contributer Hugo90 relates:
Spotted on the street in Olympia, Washington. Strange to see three of these in the USA. One had a bumper sticker from McChord Air Force Base, so they were brought here by a military person.
Great find! I wonder if there are any in Eugene?
While the one with the vanity plates does appear to be a P50 Trabant 500 from fifty years ago, the other two could have been made as recently as 1991, even if the aged DDR registration implies that this particular sedan was not. Ah, the luxury of a centrally planned economy. OTOH, comparing a 1961 Cadillac to a 1991 Cadillac points to our cars actually marching backwards. Fortunately, we had a huge lead before the EPA was created.
We had huge lead before the EPA was created.
I think the Trabant was introduced in 1958. Back then, it really wasn’t hopelessly behind the times. The build quality wasn’t up to a Beetle, but the performance, passenger room and so on were in the same ballpark, and the Trabi had a real trunk. And if you still aren’t convinced, let’s send a Trabant to run head to head with a Dauphine and see which one starts shedding parts first.
The problem with the Trabi, as with much of the rest of East Germany, was a lack of ongoing investment.
No, sadly; otherwise it would have been seen here long ago!
Eugene leans more to keeping old cars going, rather than bringing them in from elsewhere. Although we do have a few aliens, like a yellow very recent-vintage Alfa Spyder. I’ve seen it twice, but I was walking, and too slow with the camera to catch it.
My dad bought those wagons! They were owned by an old guy, who was stationed in Germany around the time the wall came down, and imported them in about 1991 through the military. We brought the wagons back to Baltimore (6000 miles in 5 days). The 601 Sedan was sold to a young guy in Olympia, where it still is.
http://trabantusa.yolasite.com/member-63.php
http://trabantusa.yolasite.com/member-64.php
Please, is it possible to see Trabant 601 still in Olympia at the same street or park it on other place?
I was in East Berlin in 1984 and these little cars were everywhere. I casually remarked to my German companion that these were such shitty cars, and he remarked to me coldly that these were very real, very valuable cars to the East Germans, who waited for up to 10 years for their number to come up so they could purchase one. Lesson learned.
People waiting in line for stuff doesn’t make it any less shitty. Totalitarians everywhere use this fallacious argument to assuage their peoples’ discontent.
I guess importing them through the miliary is the only option that remotely makes sense. If you had to go through proper channels would you even be able to register it? You’d certainly spend a lot of money to bring it in. Better to have you buddy stow it in the belly of a supply ship or transport aircraft for the trip home.
Not to slag anyone else’s classic car choice, but I think these would be interesting to look at for about a half an hour. Can’t imagine owning or wanting one, but hey there’s a bum for every seat. MattA, what’s the attraction? I tend to be attracted to cars I encountered in my youth, so I’m more for Ramblers than Trabants.
Through the military is certainly how a lot of them came into this country, but there are a decent amount that people spent real money to bring in. It used to be (back when these were imported) that as long as it was pre-1968 it could be legally imported (DOT and EPA exempt), this regulation has changed to 25 years old. As such you can legally title and register them in every state (that I’ve heard) as classics and drive them on the street.
And they’re very fun to drive and own. They weigh 1200 lbs, so even though they only have 26HP they are super agile. They have rack and pinion steering and 4-wheel independent suspension, with transverse leaf springs except for cars made after 1988 which have McPherson in the rear. Whenever you drive it you get so many questions and people love seeing them, you hear all kinds of crazy stories from people that had them back in the East. It is very easy to get bitten by the Trabant bug
Wow, only 1200 lbs (my 60 VW weighed 1600 lbs). Wouldn’t want to be broadsided in one of those. From the front it looks a bit like a miniature VW Squareback.
Almost certainly not California. I haven’t looked closely lately, but as far as I know what was supposed to be a rolling 25 year exemption got frozen years ago, and is stuck at 1975 or older.
I don’t know for sure either. But there are Trabants registered in California, not sure on the exact age
The sedan still has its old “Bezirk Dresden” number plate. And it couldn’t possibly have been made as late as ’91, as by then Sachsenring (the manufacturer) used old Polo engines and had very different taillights. That type was called Trabant 1.1 – for the 1100 cubic centimeter engine.
According to wikipedia, it started production in May ’90, but that only lasted a year as everyone and their dog was buying any Western car they could get their hands on.
Hah- more of my rotten luck on CC Clue – never having seen the interior of one of these, I was wondering to myself “Trabant?” but didn’t write anything.
I learned this lesson a long time ago: If I have any answer to the Clue. post it.
The coolest thing about Trabant is it’s 2 stroke engine…
Absolutely. The one thing I regret about the loss of East Germany is the loss of cutting-edge 2stroke tech. With no competition, the Japanese soon followed suit.
Back in 1990, Car and Driver somehow managed to get a Trabant brought over to the states, but the government gave them a real hard time about it. They wrote a great story about it in the April 1990 issue.
I was going to mention this article too. Really funny if you can find it.
I remember the mag said that the EPA and/or other DC Dept’s would not certify the car for importation to US — not just too polluting but also so S-LO-W as to be unsafe on America’s superduperhighway system. If I recall correctly they reported a 0-60 time of 33 seconds, which would definitely clog up onramps from coast to coast.
But I suspect this modified one might be faster than stock:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianpressphotography/4688072924/
I remember Car & Driver’s adventures with the Trabant as well. IIRC, they eventually managed to get the car into the U.S., but were told that they could not operate it on a public road, possibly even not operate it at all. They then ran a photo, on the cover IINM, showing the Trabant being driven on a road. Another photo inside the issue revealed that the Trabant was actually being towed behind another vehicle on a trailer. The cover photo had been staged to make it look like the car was being driven, but had been taken/cropped in such a way that the trailer wasn’t visible.
The military don’t necessarily get a pass on all the requirements to import a car from Europe. They just get free transportation for the car. They must comply with all DoT and EPA rules like anyone else.
Well, definitely not the most environment- friendly car, but I love drive it among modern crowd with some smoke out back. I know that tree huggers/ greenies would kill me for that. Yeah I`m going for a drive in a Trabant.