(first posted 11/21/2014) This month (indeed as I write, today) sees the 25th anniversary of perhaps the most momentous event in Europe’s history since 1945 – the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the opening of the Iron Curtain. It led to democratic freedoms for hundreds of millions of people from Berlin to Siberia, from the Baltic to the Black Sea; nothing in my lifetime comes close. With it came the introduction to the people of Western Europe of the daily life and life styles of the people trapped behind the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and few things show the contrast more clearly than the Eastern Bloc cars, that were either interesting, or to be popularly derided. Perhaps the best known of these is the East German Trabant.
In December 1990, my wife and I were in Berlin, where the differences between West Berlin and East Berlin were still very, very marked, and not just by the wide strip of wasteland between them. Everything, from the streetlamps to the trains and trams to any air of affluence was so contrasted between the two parts of the city. We rode on trains still bearing the colours of the DDR, with wooden slat seats, walked round streets not rebuilt after wartime bombing, saw many, many Trabants, Wartburgs and Soviet trucks, and bought some of the wall (western side shown).
Every car building country in Europe has one or more clearly identifiable and affordable cars highly regarded in the public esteem and memory, even if the car does stand up to the full rigours of hindsight and the competition. Think of the Morris Minor, the Mini, the Citroen 2CV, the Renault 4, the Fiat 500 or Fiat 124, the DAF 33, the Volvo PV444 and, of course, the VW Beetle. East Germany had one too – the Trabant, of which the 601-S was the ultimate.
The Trabant was the East German entry level car from 1957 to the fall of the wall in 1989, and production continued until 1991. Key to the Trabant were two things – the division of Germany in 1945 and what we might refer to as the competitive tension between them, and into which part of Germany the pre-war industrial infrastructure assets emerged. Of, course, Mercedes-Benz, BMW (at least most of it), Opel and Ford were in the west, as was the then new but badly bombed Volkswagen works in Wolfsburg.
IFA F9
But East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic (the GDR or DDR), had access to some of the facilities of the Auto Union group, specifically the former Horch and Audi factories in Zwickau, which was building the DKW F8. After the war, the newly created IFA continued to build the F8, and they also put into production the very advanced F9, based on DKW’s pre-war F9 that never got into production before the war started. These were of course all FWD two-stroke cars, as DKWs had all been since almost its beginning (DKW history here). With very few exceptions, all postwar DDR vehicles followed the principles laid down by previous DKWs, and especially the advanced F9, which evolved into the Wartburg 311.
Perhaps the best known car to come out of Zwickau was the Wartburg 353 Knight, with a 2-stroke engine from 1966 to 1989, and finally with a VW four-stroke four. Few of these cars made it to the west in anything other nominal quantities, with the exception of the Wartburg which was sold in various European markets, including the UK throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
But given the very modest income and purchasing powers of the East Germans, the Wartburg was too expensive except for the relatively few. So in 1954 the Politburo decreed that a smaller and cheaper car be developed, to be the counterpart to the madly successful West German VW.
Conceptually, the new Trabant was inspired by the West German FWD two-stroke Lloyd P300, which dated from 1950. But the Trabant was to be somewhat larger, in order to be a full-fledged four seater, in the standards of the time. The Lloyd’s bodywork was covered in vinyl, or something close to that, and the Trabant would also wear a non-steel body.
Compared to contemporary western European standards and practices, there were many more striking things about the Trabant. Popular memories centre on the 2-stroke engine and the Duraplast bodywork, and tend to overlook some other features which could be seen as more positive. The car was front wheel drive with a transverse engine, and in production two years ahead of the Mini.
Of course, other two stroke cars had transverse engines even earlier, one of which was the 1949 Saab 92. For that matter, DKWs had FWD transverse engines going back to the F7 of 1937, the mother of the whole lineage of these cars.
The Trabant’s gearbox was a fully synchronised four speed unit, operated by a dash mounted lever, visually half way between a column shift and a Citroen 2CV-type lever that sprouted from the dash like an umbrella handle.
Suspension was independent, using transverse leaf springs, and rack and pinion steering. It was a light and low power car, and quite roomy for its overall size. It had more usable luggage space than a VW Beetle and the styling was more contemporary as well, at least in 1957.
But there were significant negatives. The two-stroke engine was noisy; the exhaust fumes copious, and by even 1970s standards the quantity of noxious elements within them was high. As the Berlin Wall came down, West Germany granted a specific exemption to East German Trabants in respect of pollution regulations.
The interior ergonomics were perhaps beyond belief – the passenger could just as easily operate the throttle pedal as the driver, the steering wheel had a unique feeling of flimsiness and vulnerability to it, the column stalk was even worse, and there was no fuel gauge, just a dipstick in the tank. The ride, despite the independent suspension, was mediocre, largely due to totally inadequate damping. Top speed was a maximum of 68 mph in the later version, like most two-strokes, it was not very efficient either.
Perhaps the best-known feature of the Trabant was its bodywork. Although it was built on a steel monocoque structure, the visible panels were made of Duroplast. East Germany had a large chemical industry, one of the causes of its chronic pollution and environmental issues, but very little steel industry, as the pre-war German steel industry was centred on the Ruhr in the west. Duroplast was part of the solution to this – it is a composite thermosetting plastic, not dissimilar to Bakelite and Formica. It was set in heated presses, not unlike a steel panel press, around a core of cotton or wool, usually from the Soviet Union, and the resulting panel had a high stiffness and, of course, was corrosion proof, as well as light.
That corrosion resistance has meant that the Trabant, at least in the form of an abandoned bodyshell, has lived on. Duraplast won’t corrode and can’t be burnt, and the only use found for it has been to shred it and use it as an aggregate in a building material.
But there was a major downside to using this composite: it was very inefficient to produce on a mass scale. Each body panel had to be heated for several minutes; in the same time, dozens of steel body panels could have been pressed.
Perhaps the most worrying part of the Trabant was the fuel system. There was no electric fuel pump, as the engine was gravity fed, like a motorcycle (or lawnmower). Consequently, the fuel tank was under the bonnet, just ahead of the windscreen, so care was needed when fuelling with the petrol – oil mix. There was also a fuel tap under the dash, and if this was shut, an unpleasant surprise awaited, as the carburettor ran dry.
The first Trabant, which means Satellite in German, linking it nicely to then contemporary Russian Sputnik, was the P50. This was powered by a 499cc, 17 bhp 2-stroke built in the VEB Barkas-Werken in Karl-Marz-Stadt, now Chemnitz (again) and assembled in Zwickau by VEB Autombilwerk Zwickau (known as AWZ, and seen on the original badging). AWZ was later re-named VEB Sachsenring Autombilwerk Zwickau, VEB indicating it was publicly (or government) owned corporation and was part of the Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau (IFA) group of east German vehicle manufacturers. The Trabant was 11 ft long and weighed in at around 1400 lbs, and could reach 55mph. Over 3 years, around 160,00 were produced.
This was succeeded in 1959 by the Trabant P50-1, with revised front and rear styling and two tone paint, and looking a bit less austere. Engine output was upped to 20bhp now, and the price rose to 8200 Ost-Mark, or around 4000 DM. There was also an Estate version, known as the Trabant P50-1 Universal, costing around 10% more. Of course, the price information is a bit academic, as it was all but impossible to convert Ost-Marks into dollars or pounds (going the other way, well, just don’t get caught), and there was a long waiting list anyway, often stretching to several, even up to ten years.
In 1961 came the Trabant Camping, with folding seats and a fabric sunroof, for 9500 Ost-Mark, girls not included. The P50-2 came in 1962, produced for less than a year, with 23 bhp and a genuine 100km/h, or 62 mph capability.
This was followed by the Trabant P60, with a 595cc engine, and then the most familiar of all, the Trabant 601, which endured to 1990. This was the pinnacle of the Trabant, with the 595cc engine, revised styling losing the mini-Hillman Minx/Simca Aronde look for something much more akin to a DAF 33.
By 1968, 500,000 had been built, and by 1974 the millionth Trabbi showed its power by being able to tear the banner celebrating the occasion. The picture may confuse, but it is of a variant introduced in 1968 and was still in production when the 1,000,000 milestone was reached.
The last entry for the Trabant, except for the last VW engined version of 1990, in one of my reference sources DDR-Fahrzeuge von AWO bis Wartburg (Vehicles of the German Democratic Republic, from AWO to Wartburg – and a very interesting read it is too) is for 1974, when rear coil springs and a 12v electrical system were added.
Sales were almost exclusively to the DDR and other eastern bloc countries, and the car little was not well known or understood in western Europe. Those Soviet Bloc cars that were sold in western Europe, such as the Wartburg, the Lada, the Polski-Fiats and the Skoda, were mostly based on old western designs (Wartburg excepted) and sold exclusively on price. The Wartburg was at the lowest of this group, so anything lesser than a Wartburg would have been severely exposed to ridicule, even assuming it could meet legal requirements. VEB Sachsensring didn’t try.
In 1988, VEB were able to secure a licence for manufacture of the VW Polo’s 1100cc SOHC cylinder engine, and the car was updated with Macpherson strut front suspension, rear mounted fuel tank and larger rear lights, seen on these cars and also showing the full colour range. The Trabant 1.1 entered production in May 1990, after the agreement on the reunification of Germany, but it was clear that the Trabant had had its run, as the population of eastern Germany preferred to buy a used Polo or Golf instead. Production finally ceased in 1991.
In the early 1990s, a small industry built up to import and support Trabants in western Europe. It could be seen as a really cheap and dependable car, or more usually a novelty piece. The feature car is a 1984 601-S, used at one time as a daily driver. And, yes, he is a very tall.
But the Trabant came to western Europe on 1989, being welcomed in numbers, and became a huge symbol of the new freedoms of the East Germans. From November 9th,1989, Trabants, Wartburgs, Ladas and Skodas came freely through Checkpoint Charlie as east Germans exercised their new freedom, into West Berlin and then into the rest of West Germany for all sorts of reasons, from just seeing the West, to a holiday, or to see Granny again after 44 years. Never has the sight of so many smoking, inadequate cars been so exciting, and momentous.
In June 1990, my wife and I were on holiday in the Black Forest area of (then still West) Germany, in a UK registered Austin Metro, and we were blown away by the sheer number of Trabbies (everyone calls them that), and Wartburgs and Ladas, with East German plates, each as excited to wave a greeting or flash headlights to us as we were to them. What they made of the RHD Metro we’ll never know, but they were certainly enjoying their freedom. The world seemed a better place.
And, it is interesting to note, the Trabbie outsold the Austin Metro by almost 2 to 1 – yes, Sachsenring built over 3 million Trabbies. That’s a lot of cars for a country of 17 million people, and it’s no wonder East Germans have such great memories of them. It became an iconic symbol; both of the limitations of those many years behind the Wall, as well as the vehicle that provided the means to escape it.
Unsafe car alike thing. I had made some short trips in two of these only as a passenger. One was the two-stroke 600 ccm and another the latest 1100 ccm four-stroke IFA (lycenced VW engine). People used to say about Trabant that is a typical example of pollution. Especially the older two-stroke variant as well as the body sheet plastic panels probably being as unrecyclable. Otherwise it had been a cheap affordable option of mobilty for the former “working people”. You had payed the price in advance, then have to wait 3-5 years to be delivered. Usually it had been hard to make choice about the body colour. The original DDR cars used to be marketed as bi-colored and mono-colored. The exported ones throughout former Warsaw-pact member eastern-european countries had been available mostly as mono-colored.
Communism vs capitalism. Discuss. You’ve got two hours.
All jokes aside, I learnt in the very good “James May’s Cars of the People” that Trabants own the average durability record with 27 years.
Well, yeah, when you have to wait 12 years for a car, you make damn sure that it lasts as long as humanly possible.
Which means that the latest 1,1 Litre (carburated 4-stroke 4 cylinder) models are near to become 25 years old. If anybody goes as tourist to Hungary could still see the nearly 30+ years old two-stroke Trabant 601s both with the 1,1 cruising up and down on the streets. Many of them are still daily drivers…
The long life-span can be explained by the fact that these cars were REBUILT multiple times, they produced more replacement-parts than actual vehicles. Many Trabants ended up as a mish-mash of multiple model-years. These were not durable cars! Everything needed to be reused. Unlike many think, the Trabant has a steel frame underneath – only outer body parts were made out of Duroplast. From a material science point of view, a respectable approach to compensate the scarcity of deep drawing steel (that was produced in the western Ruhr-area). Earlier DKW´s in the 1930s (which the Trabant technically derives from) used wood, covered with plastic material. A more suitable picture representing communism & capitalism would display a 1988 E34 5-Series BMW next to a 1988 Wartburg. They root in the same company and segment. Before WW2, all BMW’s were produced in the eastern part of Germany.
Both show the latest Modelyear before the wall came down
A better comparison would be the Trabant to the Volkswagen Beetle. Both were intended to be cars of the people and both were unattainable to the poorest citizens (Germans under Nazi rule, East Germans under communist rule) for a fair amount of time.
While the Trabi never took off in numbers like the Beetle, it was the best that East Germany could hope for with limited finances and engineering resources. I’m sure most East Germans that owned one would tell you that a Trabi was better than nothing.
At least, the Trabant wasn’t a scam…
In order to buy a Beetle, or K.d.F as it was known at the time, one could buy saving stamps to complete some kind of saving books to buy a K.d.F after the completion of 4 or 5 of these books.
Unfortunately, any K.d.F built before Wolsburg factories started to build Kubelwagen, went to NSDAP high Officials (IIRC, Goering got one)
And the cash from saving stamps was only used to fuel german war efforts.
People who saved money for their own beetle never saw one…
So it was basically a scam.
Not to come across as a Hitler defender 🙂 But building the world’s largest automobile factory (1 million annual capacity) required some “creative financing”, back in the mid 1930s. It wasn’t really a “scam”, inasmuch as it would have worked out and folks would have gotten their KdF Wagens, except for that little foray into Poland.
There were very few civilian KdF wagens built before the war started, (IIRC just some hundreds or a few thousand) and production switched to war products and the Kubelwagen.
And VW did honor those still holding their KdF wagen savings books in the late 1950s or so, with a substantial discount on a new VW, and IIRC, some even got a complete car if they had paid it up fully.
A scam implies that there was never an intent to honor the scheme. That wasn’t the case.
I believe postwar VW had to be sued before they agreed to give any credit to the Nazi era savers, and I doubt anyone got full credit toward the price. VWAG argued that they were not the same company as the party with whom the savers had contracted (which, arguably, was the defunct Nazi government). That being said, it is generally agreed that the savings program was not intended as a scam from the get-go. It’s what happens when you lose a war. The Confederate States of America issued bonds that said the interest was payable upon the conclusion of a treaty of peace between the CSA and the USA. Oops . . .
What I learned from James May’s “Cars of the People” program on BBC America was that the KDF “thing” wasn’t just a car, it was an entire type of lifestyle that was being sold to the German people, there were radios and other household goods, cruise ships, health and leisure activity programs and an entire huge vacation resort that was never finished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prora
Two rival species of collectivist totalitarianism; both were German Engineering.
It is true that private corporations existed in the Reich, but with a catch. For example, Hugo Yunkers & Ernst Heinkel lost their companies because they were Politically Incorrect: Yunker’s sin was Pacifism; Heinkel’s was refusing to fire his Jewish staff.
Now Krupp was a sinister piece of work; read Manchester’s book about his firm. So many slave laborers died in his factories, he got a reproof from NSDAP officials!
You`re quite right That name Krupp DOES sounds sinister, like a bad guy from a “Star Wars” movie.
One Krupp leftover is Thyssen/Krupp, who make elevators at least. I’m reminded of that whenever I visit our local YMCA.
More trivia: Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru) came from Nakajima Aircraft Co., broken up by MacArthur. They designed excellent fighters, though their G5N heavy bomber was a dud; it was based on the Douglas DC4E, sold to Japan. This is the only verifiable case I know of Japan copying American planes.
And while we’re on the subject of Fuji Heavy Industries, one year after the Trabant was introduced, Fuji broke into the car market with . . . the Subaru 360. So which would you choose, the Subaru 360 or the Trabi? The Trabi or the Renault Dauphine? The Trabi wasn’t all that outside the ordinary as to cheap cars when it was introduced. The problem is the DDR never updated it. Of course, they didn’t have to.
Nakajima initially became just Fuji Industry, which is what was split up by the Allied occupation into (inter alia) Fuji Heavy Industries (parent of Subaru) and Fuji Precision Machinery, which became one of the bases of Prince Motor Co., later merged with Nissan. (The Nissan Skyline and Gloria were originally Prince models.)
I’d love to have one. I have dreams of showing up at Cars and Coffee, parking it in the middle of the line of Ferrari’s that usually show up, and then smugly enjoy getting more attention.
Remember them being used as stage props in one of U2’s mega-tours?
I saw that exact scenario play out at a Cars & Coffee in Dallas. The Trabbie was swarmed, though there were plenty of folks who didn’t get it and just strolled by.
As an owner of `82 Trabant I can tell you that on the road it gets more attention than a Panamera or BMW 5.
Yes, the 1991 album Achtung Baby was very Trabant heavy, with Trabants being used in the cover art, in the video for “One” and as stage props for the Zoo TV-Achtung Baby tour.
I was one of the few people that knew “what those little weird cars from the U2 video” were.
Those Trabis that were used as stage props eventually found their way to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where they still can be seen hanging in the lobby.
These cars, for better or worse, were no doubt an integral part of East Germany. Even though I wasn’t alive in 1989, those iconic images of thousands of people crossing the now open border into the west in their Trabbis always stick with me.
Roger, you have hit another home-run. Thank you.
As a teenager living on another continent, I did not fully grasp the magnitude of events surrounding the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. What I did notice was the various cars used in East Germany, primarily the Trabant.
Your article fills in many of the blanks I have had about the Trabant – a car of which I have seen all of one example. After the reunification, I remember hearing news reports (likely around when you were there in 1990) about the safety concerns of the Trabant being on the autobahn and the profound speed differential that was now being realized and its resultant safety issue.
Recycling the body into building material? It seems nearly anything can be recycled or repurposed in some way. It reminded me of asphalt shingles being recycled into asphaltic concrete for use as binder and aggregate.
At last, a German car that can make an Englishman feel a bit smug. 🙂 Then again, maybe not, given that it won’t rust and has proved exceedingly durable. Actually, could these have a higher survival rate than some 1970s Fords?
Thanks for this informative writeup. This car really is an interesting mix of innovative engineering and extreme crudity. There is something oddly compelling about it to this American. That dashboard shot is fascinating, a design that is neither symmetrical nor driver centered.
They didn’t have Lucas electrics.
Advantage: Commie-Germans.
Great article! I particularly needed your explanation on the different variations the car had during its long long life. And I agree with what others have said. What an spectacular event the fall of the Berlin Wall was. Surely the greatest in my lifetime (sure, I was 1 and a half years old, but still :D)
When the Wall fell, my fellow teens and I were goofing around suburbia in our parents’ various good-enough compacts, and my buddy Zach’s ’74 Cutlass. Safer than a Trabant, and not just when it wasn’t running. 🙂
I find it hard to convey to my kids just how possible a nuclear war seemed back then. If you’re older than me, maybe you think I’m exaggerating, but I remember when “The Day After” was shown on TV, and everyone was talking about it the next day. I was in fourth grade. Chunks of cheap culture that look like kitsch now were the stuff of nightmares.
Anyway, thanks for a good article as always, Roger.
I was always wondering who would blow us up as a kid in the 70s,the Russians or the IRA.
Looking back on the Cold War, a mitigation was that the Soviets were the “enemy you knew,” who were fairly predictable. The IRA were wildcards who, like modern Islamic radicals, were willing & able to strike anywhere, at any time.
Don’t get me wrong, my childhood was safe and pleasant compared to that of a billion others, then and now. Looking back I can call it cognitive dissonance – sure, the world seems like a nice place, but any minute now…
Those of us living in Australia back then were glad we’d shipped out from the mother country long ago.
I grew up living on various Strategic Air Command bases. I knew H-Bombs (as opposed to A-Bombs) were aimed right at my butt. Dad would disappear for a day or two and Mom would look nervous and I knew another real alert or scheduled drill had taken place.
I snickered when I saw ‘Duck and Cover’ because I knew my pasty human body would evaporate like the poor souls who made the shadows at Hiroshima. ‘The Day After’ was shown a year or two after Dad retired and I was in college. It was okay. Now we don’t fear destruction at quite that level, do we?
My ex wife lived in Conway, Arkansas for part of her childhood, and there was a missile installation outside town. Her dad was a Civil Defense volunteer and decided one day to explain to his kids that the duck and cover drills were silly, because if the Soviets decided to take out the Conway installation with a nuke of their own, they would all be vaporized anyway. So she decided to share that with her teacher, which resulted in *Dad* being called into the principal’s office and asked to please just keep his knowledge to himself.
Try the standoff of the Cuban Crisis. I was 9 at the time and we, in Canada, did the duck and cover nonsense. Some of my friends parents had dug bomb shelters in their back yards. I kept wondering, Why were my parents not busy at the same task?
I remember that movie… Was scary then (and still it is). So the Trabant could be connected as a symbol to the then cold war situation…
And the Trabi is still going strong here in Dresden! Some are driven ironically, some by those who just want a car, and the rest are used for tourism as Trabi safari cars. Whatever the case may be, I see quite a few each week, which always brings a smile to my face.
“Rent a Trabi, for that authentic East German experience.” 🙂
Nice article .
I find the Trabant an interesting car and would love to try one just to see how it goes , as I have a love for small , basic transportation devices .
I assume that using modern synthetic two – smoke oils and careful tuning would reduce the smoking and stink greatly ~ back in the 1960’s when Pops bought a new SAAB Station Wagon , the blue smoke it trailed wasn’t any concern .
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 scared the living crap out of all Americans who understood the power of atom bombs .
-Nate
One advantage from the old days that we’ve long forgotten:
Back then, we had a REAL enemy. Some who, at certain moments, was getting very close to killing us (I still remember my father during the Cuban Missile Crisis – the only time I ever saw him SCARED).
Nowadays, occasional terrorist attacks aside, we have the luxury of being offended in all sorts of little ways: Sexism, ageism, liberalism, conservatism, pick-your-ism. And we can scream, mortally offended, over all sorts of nothing.
Reality was a lot more real back them.
The Cuban missile crisis WAS the first time I ever got scared – Real, deep-down scared.
Duck & cover drills, blue “bomb route” signs with an arrow pointing upward posted on telephone poles along the main drags through St. Louis before the initial interstate highways were completed, ubiquitous radioactive symbols on large building indicating community fallout shelters, air raid sirens, etc.
Yeah, as an 11-year-old in 1962, I was very scared. I’ll never forget it, either.
Less well-known is that the USSR & China came within an ace of going nuclear over several border clashes, with loss of life, in 1969 such as Zhenbao Island. Fortunately, diplomacy prevailed here too.
Charles de Gaulle once said, “France has no friends, only interests.”
I had the chance to ride across the show field in an 80s Trabant at an Euro car show at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, CA. The car had been imported by a gentleman who had family back in E Germany and he’d always wanted one.
He appreciated my interest and gave me a ride in it. I loved it’s simplicity, and while it was agricultural [grille held on with two bolts, IIRC and gasoline dipstick] it got plenty of attention among the Ferraris, Citroens and Fiats.
The Trabant really appeals to automotive minimalists like myself.
Thanks for another great read Roger.Iron curtain cars interest me having had an FSO.2 strokes seem to have vanished,a music teacher had a Wartburg and a neighbour had a Villiers engined 3 wheeler(it looked very strange watching him kickstart his car).
I remember when these bottomed out in “value” in the mid 90’s my friend who was traveling in Germany said they were going for like 20 DMarks, he almost considered buying one for laughs, driving it around for a bit and then abandoning it at the curb at the airport.
That sounds like the communist equivalent of Zipcar.
My first encounter with a Trabant was in 1973 in northeast Poland when a family of three with Grandpa along, arrived at my relatives farm. the farm used to be on German soil and the grandfather wanted too see it again. My first reaction as an 18 year old is how comfortably did everyone travel squeezed into that little car? My second reaction was that of disgust at the noise and smoke emitted from the coughing powerplant.
Thirty years later during a trip to Poland and Germany I came across an older gent washing his little Trabant one morning. I took a picture as it really showed someone who had an attachment to his basic little mode of transport. The Trabbi looked new and why shouldn’t it under the care of this gentleman and the indestructible body structure?
As I recall there were worse communist era cars, the Warburg at the top of that list in my opinion.
The best might have been the Russian Volga taxi my father hired to drive us around Poland as we visited the relatives. Almost as nice a driving car as what we had back in North America.
I have a lot of German background, my Dad’s family was German Lithuanian, he was born in Lithuania, grew up speaking German during the war years, ended up in a Displaced Person (DP) camp in the British sector ’45-’49, and emigrated to the U.S. Midwest. I married a Beyer, just to keep my German cred up.
So, I’ve followed Germany with great interest. While taking German in high school in the early ’80s, I never dreamed that reunification would occur before the decade was out. Exciting times!
I would have loved to have been able to get to know both sides of Berlin just after the fall of the wall, and go back to visit now and see what kind of evolution took place.
I was well aware of the Trabant, but had no idea about many things, including the Duraplast body. Great article, and insight.
It is very interesting to see the car promoted in very Western ways, undoubtedly to create at least a little illusion around a dreary car and a dreary situation.
Danke!
Das Leben der Anderen” – the Life of Others inthe language version. Excellent film.
Also try, “Barbara” and “Remember Lenin”, for a slightly surreal take on it all
Do you mean Good Bye Lenin??
I wanted to see this when it came out, but never got around to it until a few weeks ago (it’s on YouTube with English subtitles) – great movie!
Bitte sehr!
Thank you, Roger.
This bring back many memories. I particular enjoyed you describing the feeling of freedom the people exuded after the wall came down.
I have seen the contrast between East an West when traveling to West Berlin. I needed a passport in my own country! I noticed the people were proud of their cars as much as Westerners were of theirs. Maybe even more so as they had to work harder and wait longer for the trabbies than the Westerners worked for their Opel Kadetts. To me these cars are no fodder for jokes as they presented a modicum of affluence to the people in Eastern countries.
Great write up, had no idea these crude looking cars were transverse fwd. Shame they were 2 stroke. Always wondered how they were designed. It must have been an experience keeping them running, I’ll bet most people repaired them themselves to save money. Parts were probably expensive and hard to get back in the day.
I first saw these in Budapest around 1990. They still remind me of a ’57 Chevy that shrunk in the wash… and the station wagon would be a ’57 Chevy Nomad.
Are you insulting `57 Chevies?
Great write up Roger, Ive never seen one of these going just a static one in a museum, I had heard they just kept building DKWs in the east under a new names seems that part was right as far as wanting one nar I’d rather have a Morris Minor for bare bones basic transport premixing fuel is a PITA I do it for my weed eater and ancient Villiers powered reel mower but for an everyday car yeah nar.
In Budapest in the mid-90s I saw one of these with what looked like the entire engine compartment contents strewn on the sidewalk while the owner worked on it. He did not look happy.
In the early 90s there was an amusing movie “Go Trabi Go” about an eastern German family taking their first road trip around western Europe. At one point it breaks down and to pay for repairs they rent out the Trabi to curious Bavarians who abuse the hell out of it, drive it on two wheels, etc.
it’s available on Youtube! I had no idea this film existed!
Thanks!
Here with English subtitles —
Look at that black and white photo of the cars leaving the AWZ plant. What a sad, miserable and somber scenery. It gives me the chills.
Just like that superb movie “Das Leben der Anderen” about the last years of the DDR.
Went to the “air cooled” car show at the Gilmore last summer. As expected, a row of Franklins, a couple rows of VWs, a row of Porsches, and then a pocket of weirdness: two Trabis, between a 2CV truck and a Daffodil.
What a fascinating feature. I thought I knew about Trabants, but you gave us so much information I hadn’t seen before.
Well done, Roger!
I visited Ostberlin for a day in the spring of 1989. That day was one of few in my life that I could never forget.
I found it impossible to imagine a life under the communist goverment and centrally planned economy and market. So many Trabants and Wartburgs with occasional strays from other communist countries, i.e. Skoda, FIO, Lada, and like. What the photos and vidoes didn’t reveal was the nauseating and burning stench from countless two-stroke motors. Not to mention the intense rumbling noise from those cars. During the afternoon rush hour, the streets almost disappeared under the blue haze.
Another surprising observation that stuck to my mind the most about that day was sizeable number of three-door Mazda 323 (BD version) and Peugeot 205 with East German numberplates. They probably belonged to some SED party members higher on the pecking order as reward for their unfailing loyalty and duty to the communist party.
Great to see my trabi featured here. A891WGO is not just a show car but still earning it’s living as my daily drive. Excellent article too.
Hi James,
I’m glad you like it, and thanks for sharing your car!
I had a VW Jetta once. Worst car I ever owned. As far as I’m concerned, Volkswagen = Hitler’s Revenge! Maybe a Trabant would have been better.
I like the idea of taking one of these to a car show and stealing attention from cars orders of magnitude more valuable. I knew a guy who had an absolute heap of a rusted out, dented up, held together with bailing wire Ford Model A that he would bring (on a trailer- it was far from drivable) to various car shows just to piss off the Model A purists/snobs who had $30K or more into their over-restored garage queens. He said it garnered far more interest…
I remember watching a documentary about the production of these cars, and surprisingly they have a following of enthusiasts. As much as I love cars, this is one car I can’t seem to love. The design was ugly, the engine polluted and the body might not survive a crash. There were also numerous Trabant jokes:
Q. Why is the Trabant the most quietest car to drive?
A. Because your knees cover your ears.
More from this site:
http://humour.bluehaze.com.au/show.php?wk=2014_09_26
Q. How do you double the value of a Trabant?
A. Fill up the tank!
===
Q. How do you turn a Trabant into a sports car?
A. Put sneakers in the trunk!
===
During a visit to the Leipzig Trade Fair a filthy rich oil sheikh heard
that there is a car with a delivery time of over ten years. Since Rolls
Royce usually delivers more quickly than that, it must be quite an
exceptional car, which he would certainly have to have in his collection.
Sight unseen, he made a request to order this Trabant. In Zwickau they’re
aware of this great honour, so they immediately change the running
Five-Year Plan and bring forward a specimen. In the container, the car
reaches the emirate in a handful of weeks. The happy oil sheikh immediately
called his friends together, opened the container, and surprisedly
exclaimed: “Gosh, they have incredibly long delivery times, but at least
they send you a cardboard model in advance – and the best, you can even
drive it!”
===
Sachsenring AG brought out a new Eco-Trabi: Immediately available for
delivery, extremely cheap, extremely quiet, extremely environmentally
friendly – with electric power train. Problem: The extension cord is only
20 meters long and not in stock!
===
A customer walks into a Trabi dealer.
Customer: “I want a Trabi with a two-tone paint job.”
Dealer: Yes, sir! It also comes with a turbocharged engine, antiskid
braking, radial tires and a Blaupunkt stereo.
Customer: You’re joking.
Dealer: Well, you started it!
===
Q. How many workers does it take to build a Trabi?
A. two, one to fold and one to paste.
===
Q. How do you measure the acceleration of a Trabant?
A. With a diary.
===
Q. Why do some Trabants have heated rear windows?
A. To keep your hands warm when pushing.
===
Q. What’s the difference between a Jehovah’s Witness and a Trabant?
A. You can shut the door on a Jehovah’s Witness.
Those are recycled Lada and VW gags heard long ago but still give a smile
I see in the Trabant the pure contempt in which Communist elites hold their proles. Forcing such a palpably crappy clown-car with a smoky, chokey two-stroke on their captive audience was the Politburo’s way of saying, “This is all you cockroaches deserve. We even recklessly located the gas tank under the hood right beside the engine as a reminder of how little we care for your well-being. So don’t forget: we own you and we can do anything we want to you, up to and including killing you, anytime we feel like it.” The Trabant was 600cc of Stalinism on four skinny tires.
Exactly right Alexander. I was trying to link the Trabi to the current United States administration, but my comment was deleted.In a so called “classless society”, the proles were relegated to the Trabi, that is after they waited an absurdly long time to get one, while the Politburo types had their GAZs, Chaikas,Volgas and ZILs. Bet they were laughing at Trabis while they were riding in Soviet style. Truly a “Leninist Lemon” or a “Marxist Miscarriage”.
Phil b: You tried that twice, in a very blatantly politicized form. We have zero tolerance for comments like that here. Please don’t try it again.
Great stuff, Roger – in fact I think this is probably the single best article I’ve ever read on Trabants!
I was only 6 years old when the Berlin Wall came down, and obviously didn’t really understand it, but I can remember watching it on TV and thinking it was a huge deal regardless. I also remember a girl at my school bringing in a graffiti’d chunk of the wall that her father had retrieved while on a business trip to Berlin and passing it around the classroom in a little Zip-Loc bag. Our teacher, Mrs. Parisi, had the impossible task of trying to explain what was going on halfway across the world and why this chunk of rock was important, and I think she actually did a very good job.
I also had a book with a few color pictures of Trabants in it back then (the same one that featured the Flying Pinto from last week) and I think that probably enabled me to understand the re-unification of Germany more than anything.
I see in this Trabant… A statement about the failure of communism, and the failure (yep) of capitalism. The Trabant stands after the cold war that forged it came to an end… It thrives under the glare of those in power now, money hungry fools who would have it crushed to make way for a new car… and another… and another….
As for durability, the Trabant in this article (A891WGO) is now 32 years old, still a daily use car for commuting and longer trips. In it’s future this year, a second London to Brighton Classic Car run, and a much more adventurous trip from the UK to France, Germany and the Netherlands.
The Trabant shown here is my Trabant… And I am heartened to see it sparked a lively debate. It’s job is done 😀
I became fascinated with these little cars after seeing them on T.V swarming through checkpoint Charlie as a teenager back in ’89.
A couple of nuggets of information I’ve picked up;
The Trab was already out of date by 1970. Sachsenring was well aware of this and had designed newer, updated models-still in existence in a museum, I believe- but as each update would have required increased use of scarce resources like steel, the government always said “Nein” and wouldn’t clear it for production.
Running properly, they do smoke, but not as badly as people think. It was a habit of some DDR residents to mix in rather more two stroke oil than recommended “because it uses less petrol”.
There were widespread safety concerns about the large numbers of Trabants entering the west, from bumbling along at 62 mph on speed limitless autobahn to crash worthiness. In the event Trabants are remarkably strong for what they are and famously passed the slalom “moose test” with flying colours (the manoeuvrability test that caused the Mercedes A class to tip over)
Adventurous types have discovered that it’s possible to fit the 1000cc 3 cylinder wartburg engine. Terrifying.
Duroplast outer body panels don’t rust, but the steel skeleton structure and underbody certainly does.
I photographed one of these sitting innocently on a side street near me last summer. I was amazed at its condition, but I was unaware of the composite construction until I read this article. Thank you.
My example is still sporting what appears to be DDR plates, and has a car show sign sitting on the passenger seat (do not touch etc.) so has been well preserved.
I was not a CC reader when this article was published but followed the link from Paul’s post of today and read through this. I never knew the name “Trabant” meant “Satellite” in translation.
try again for the photo attachment.
The author mistakenly states that the Wartburg 353 was made in Zwickau, when, in fact, it was made in Eisenach.
Also, Wartburg descended from the part of BMW that wound up in East Germany (later renamed EMW, Eisenacher Motorenwerk), not from DKW/Auto Union.
I remember as a child we rented videotapes from the goethe institute and would watch them. The video of the duroplast panels being made was fascinating in an appalling way. They took large bolts of cloth and fed them into a sort of press which impregnated the panels with resin.
C/d tested one of these in 1991 and calculated that it cost about $800 by western standards to make. You can imagine what an $800 car would be like and this was what you get for $800 and a 12 year wait. As someone re, ah, MARK ed earlier, if you have to wait 12 years for something and it eats up all your savings, it’s going to be durable whether it likes it or not.
It could have been a better car but the problem with this sort of system, which would take a p j o Rourke book to explain and not an offhand comment on an automotive blog, is that there’s no incentive to do better. Sure, east germany had talented engineers and they could have produced an east german mercedes but they didn’t, because there was no incentive to do better.
Thanks for all the film recommendations! I’ll add them to my list.
You can imagine what an $800 car would be like and this was what you get for $800
The world’s best $800 car then.
Sure, east germany had talented engineers and they could have produced an east german mercedes but they didn’t, because there was no incentive to do better.
The incomes in East Germany would have made a Mercedes utterly unaffordable. The whole point of this car was to make it relatively affordable, given the low wages.
I was 30 at the time of the wall coming down and did realize it was a big deal. It must have been quite the experience to be there so soon after it happened. I finally got to Berlin in 2017 and you could still see the clear transition from west to east in terms of the buildings and infrastructure. I really enjoyed the section of the wall that has been reserved as an outdoor art gallery.
I forgot to add, you could still rent a Trabbie of your choice. Some were painted up in wild, off-the-wall paint schemes too.
Paul Niedermeyer wrote: “The incomes in East Germany would have made a Mercedes utterly unaffordable. The whole point of this car was to make it relatively affordable, given the low wages.”
Yes, considering the lack of resources, low wages, the vagaries of a planned/centralized economy and the emphasis on exporting what higher – quality products they could in order to earn scarce hard currency in Western markets, the Trabant was what was accessible to ordinary East German citizens at the time – or “real existing Socialism” as the GDR leadership called their attempts at a consumer economy. Cradle – to – grave social services were the top priorities, along with heavily – subsidized consumer or “social” goods, e.g. low rents, basic foodstuffs, day care, cheap public transport and the like. East Germany had a very good engineering base, but the afore – named factors limited what could be produced (exceptions might be Praktica cameras, which were successfully exported, and also optical products from the Zeiss Works in Jena). Additionally, by the 70’s more advanced production technologies had to be imported for precious hard currency or “borrowed” – sometimes via industrial espionage – from the capitalist West. In the late 50’s the GDR even attempted to start a civilian air transport industry – producing the ill – fated Baade 152 jet airliner, but it was simply a no – go (and the USSR already was developing similar aircraft, and they had “economy of scale”; in fact by 1988 the East German airline Interflug purchased three Airbus A310 airliners – with the help of a West German loan!). In the 80’s billions in precious resources were poured into an East German attempt to build an IT industry, including microchips produced by the Robotron firm in Dresden. Again, a no – go, competition from the West was too much, but some of those resourceful East German IT engineers were snapped up by Western firms after 1990, and though Robotron is defunct, Dresden is again thriving IT center…
East Germany worked with that they had. As mentioned, there would be no point in producing a Mercedes – class vehicle. For “luxury” vehicles, the GDR leadership imported Volvo and some other makes – I’ve seen footage of the last GDR leader Erich Honecker being ferried around in an upscale Citroen – and the lesser “Genossen” (Comrades) were relegated to Tatras or Chaikas or even Volgas. The GDR was a relatively small place in any case, 17 million population, for “upscale” vehicles they imported if needed. And if ordinary GDR citizens were lucky enough to have access to hard currency – especially via West German relatives/friends – they could buy many Western makes via the “Genex” hard – currency mail – order “gift service”, link to 1986 catalog here:
https://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/genex/genexkatalog1986.pdf
In 1973 Trabant produced a very attractive prototype, the P1100 (pic attached). Wiki: “The Trabant’s designers expected production to extend until 1967 at the latest, and East German designers and engineers created a series of more-sophisticated prototypes intended to replace the P601; several are displayed at the Dresden Transport Museum. Each proposal for a new model was rejected by the East German government due to shortages of the raw materials required in larger quantities for the more-advanced designs. As a result, the Trabant remained largely unchanged for more than a quarter-century. Also unchanged was its production method, which was extremely labour-intensive…”
Great essay and comments from CC members! Thanks for the history.
If anyone is interested in the former German Democratic Republic, here is a great site run by a Brit (living in the States), including podcasts and links. Like me, he has always had a fascination with East Germany (I visited Berlin and Dresden several times in the late 70’s and had friends there, including one who tried in 1984 to escape via Hungary – he spent prison time for that attempt!). There have been several meet -ups in Berlin, featuring of course tours of GDR sites of interest in Trabants:
https://radiogdr.com/about/
The same bloke moderates a “Radio GDR” Facebook group, and GDR vehicles are an evergreen discussion topic. The GDR produced many interesting vehicles, not just cars but also trucks, motorbikes, bicycles and farm equipment. This FB group is not “pro” or “anti” East German politically, but it is a friendly place where all members – over 1,000 – can discuss topics of East German interest. There are many former GDR citizens on this group to give their unique perspectives on their past and subsequent lives. I’ve several times linked to articles of East German vehicle interest here on Curbside Classic (CC is one of the few places that discusses this “arcane” topic in fact!), always a good discussion ensues:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/radiogdr
Fun fact:
Former East German drivers’ licences bearing the “DDR” designation are still valid for their holders, and are recognized – a number of former GDR citizens on the afore – mentioned Facebook group still have theirs.
https://www.bmvi.de/SharedDocs/EN/Articles/StV/validity-german-driving-licences-in-other-countries.html
“Valid German driving licences, including those of the former GDR, are recognized in the Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein)…”
Interesting that they would be, since in the US your drivers’ license lasts six years, tops, before you have to renew. I suppose that not doubling as the primary form of government-issued ID means a German driver’s license can just as well have a 30-year-old picture or none at all.
Yes, thanks for the comment. Apparently in Germany a pre – 2013 driving licence was good for a lifetime, now it is valid for 15 years. And since the Germans have a national ID card, it is not generally used as an ID. ISTR reading somewhere that eventually the old DDR licences (and all German pre 2013 “lifetime” licences) will be set to expire in 2033, then it must be replaced with a new one. By then, the DDR will have been “expired” for 43 years,,,
Wiki:
“Card validity
The Driving licence card is valid for 15 years, and is replaced with a new card when it expires. Before 19 January 2013, the driving licence card was valid without time limit. There is a decision that cards issued before that date expire on 19 January 2033. Although the driving licence is an official document issued by authorities, it has very limited validity as an identity card…”
East germany got most of what was left of the industrial base (as did north korea) and both east and west germany started from basically scratch. The first bmws were very economical cars as were the various dkws and goggomobiles and such, but because of the incentives to do better, mercedes became the standard of the world. East germany stagnated so the incomes weren’t up to mercedes purchasing, but west german incomes weren’t always high.
Another factor hobbling factor for East Germany aka “The Soviet Zone” (until declaration of an independent East German state in 1949) were the tremendous amounts sent to the USSR for war reparations. Entire industrial plants and concerns were carted up and sent to the USSR, and this included intellectual property such as patents; these formal reparations lasted until 1953. The US, UK and France also extracted much reparations – wise from postwar Germany, but the East Germans were especially hard hit. Also, West Germany participated in the US – sponsored Marshall Plan which greatly aided the re-establishment of West German industry and reintegration into world export markets (and Inclusion into the European Coal & Steel Community in 1952, the ancestor of today’s EU). East Germany was included in the USSR’s “answer” to the Marshall Plan, COMECON, in 1949, but COMECON was oriented towards East Bloc markets, not so much the traditional German pre – war “world” markets. From the start, the West Germans were fast moving forward in the world and East Germany was tied to the East Bloc’s much less advanced economies…
CC-in-scale has two Trabants. Revell in Germany brought out a kit of one when the Wall came down, and then did a much better one about ten years ago. Here’s their more recent effort.
And a rear view.
They also do a wagon version of the newer kit.