Trabant. the family friend

Trabant. It means something like 'companion'. In the GDR, the Trabant was not a car, it was a family member. Often even with an affectionate name. In the west it symbolized poverty and stagnation.

The black sheep

It has to be one of the most reviled cars ever. When you say Trabant, you inevitably think of the poor East Germans who had to wait for years for something that almost looked like a toy car, with a rattling and smelly two-stroke engine under the hood. The Trabant represented almost half of the car traffic in the 'other Germany'. The model 601 in particular became iconic because it was made almost unchanged from 1964 to 1991.

An obsolete car that is made for a long time is not a socialist patent. The capitalist west also had such models. The Beetle, the Duck, the Mini, the Renault 4. In India, the Hindustan Ambassador took the cake: this car, derived from the Morris Oxford (model 1956), lasted 58 years, it was introduced in 1957 and only stopped in 2014 production. Such cars are no longer cars at some point, but become iconic. They belong to the classic street scene. The Trabi was the GDR, just like the Citroën 2CV became the epitome of the French “je m'en fou” and the Mini continued to represent the Swinging London of the optimistic sixties long after that happy time passed. The single Trabant 601 model has existed considerably longer than the 19 years of our Daf passenger car production.

Below we are going to subject the maligned Trabantje to a critical, but fair judgment. Was he really that bad? What was with that waiting list of more than ten years? Was he really a traffic hazard and was he frugal? What is a plastic car? How useful and how reliable was the Trabi and did it really emit defoliant? You can read it below.

What was it?

The Trabant 601 was a compact four-seater family car, made for the small purse. It was powered by an air-cooled transversely mounted two-stroke two-cylinder engine that powered the front wheels. The top speed varied depending on the year of manufacture and version between 95 and 105 km/h. There were four bodies: the regular two-door passenger car, the three-door combi 'Universal', the army version with canvas roof and the civilian variant 'Tramp' derived from it. There was a standard version, a luxury version and in between all kinds of things could be ordered as extra. Not that cruise control, calfskin or air conditioning could be ticked off, it was more in the order of a manual sunroof, chrome headlight rings, hubcaps, a clock and rear window heating (from 1984).

Waiting, saving or looking at your western family sweetly

The story is well known: from the mid-80s, an ordinary East German had to wait up to fifteen years for a new Trabant. Less known is that other cars were available at that time. Anyone who wanted to could buy the more or less equally large (small) Ukrainian ZAZ Zaporozhets for the same money. The even smaller Fiat 126p from Poland was also fairly easily available.

So there must have been a strange preference for that own German Trabi. Why? Well, compared to the Zaporozjets, for example, it had a trunk space of 465 liters (the Universal even 1400 liters with the rear seats folded down). The Trabi was more economical than just about all other cars. And the Fiat 126p was just too small for a normal family. Of course there were more cars for sale in the GDR, sometimes even from the West such as the VW Golf and the Citroën GS, but they fell in a higher (for most unaffordable) price range.

And there was another clear reason that the Trabant was in constant demand: in the GDR there was a great lack of garages. Much maintenance was done in-house or by a handy acquaintance. With a Trabant that was less of a problem than with, for example, the four-stroke V4 engine and carefully hidden lubrication points of the Saporozjets or the secrets of an aluminum Skoda engine. And for such a widely used model, parts can be found even in a country with a poor parts supply.

Anyone who had to have a car professionally in the GDR was not on that long waiting list. A doctor, midwife or higher official could immediately buy one. Those who only needed it for recreation had to wait. Waiting longer and longer. As a result, there was also a lively market for second-hand Trabants, they were worth even more than what had to be paid new for the first two to five years in used condition, which caused all kinds of speculation and even longer waiting times.

Finally, there was a strange detour to get to the desired Trabi quickly: convincing the family in the West that they should get one for you. Because there were no official customs facilities between East and West Germany (a tax treaty regarded the internal border as not subject to tax), a West German could give a car (or stereo set, color TV to an East German acquaintance or family member) without additional costs. , camper or complete prefab house) with the Genex organization. This gave the GDR the much-needed foreign exchange, because without hard D-Marks it would be impossible to import products such as coffee, cocoa and tropical fruit into the GDR.

Difficult production

Then why didn't the factory increase the numbers? This was due to the countless bottlenecks in the production line. As with the Duroplast covering of the body. This was a labour-intensive and slow process and no investments were made in new installations. The second hurdle was the division of engine and chassis production at different locations. Believe it or not, but for the three-door 'Universal' a bottom group was first welded, painted, protected against rust and transported to another factory, where the paint and rust protection was partly ground off again to put the Universal coach on. welding, after which everything was repainted and protected against rust and returned to the Trabant factory. Engines were already being made elsewhere, and the Sachsenring factory in Zwickau was a logistical disaster in itself. But that didn't matter, because there was no unemployment in the GDR. And due to the lengthy production time, the available machinery had to be used for just as long. As a result, it wears and wears further and further. In Sachsenring factory films we see how the cars are still made entirely by hand, on a production line from a bygone era and always with some people who do little.

By the way, VEB Automobilwerke Sachsenring not only made small Trabant cars, but also large luxury cars for politicians, ambassadors and other hot-tempered players.

A bad car?

Admittedly: in 1973, the last year that it was still for sale in the Netherlands, the Trabant was a car with which you could go everywhere, except in good company. In that last import year, it cost an absolute bottom price of 4.499 (500 guilders less than a Fiat 500R) and to be honest, you could see that. The body quickly became dull, the line was very outdated, the equipment was scant, the performance was mediocre. And there was a plume of blue smoke behind it, especially with cold weather or a cold engine.

Did that make it a bad car? On the contrary. A Trabi was still a German product, on which clever minds had worked. Contrary to popular belief, only the outer cladding was made of plastic. Everything below consisted of a robust self-supporting body made of thick, galvanized sheet steel. Today, people who book a Trabi tour in Berlin are amazed at how sturdy that mousey cart still feels.

We can be brief about the technology: it couldn't be simpler. The engine consisted of five moving parts. Those engines were still revised from time to time: for example, the vulnerable needle bearings in the crankshaft were replaced by spherical roller bearings in 1974 and the plain bearings in the piston pins by needle bearings, allowing the mixing ratio to be adjusted down to 1:50. To prevent flushing losses, a rotating inlet valve was installed. Around the twentieth year of production, a 12V installation, halogen headlights and electronic ignition were installed. At the very end of his career, there was even a fuel gauge with consumption indication by means of colored LED lights. Not that it was necessary, the Trabi was economical with mixture lubrication. He ran 1:17. This was due to its low weight of 615 kilos.

The other technique was also very simple, but good. The synchromesh four-speed transmission, with steering wheel controls, had a freewheel on the input shaft, so that the engine remained lubricated on long descents. Of course there was front-wheel drive, and a rack and pinion steering box. The wheels were suspended from triangles in rubber bushings.

At the front and rear there were transverse leaf springs and telescopic shock absorbers all around. Coil springs were fitted to the rear axle from 1984. The comfort was not bad, but the car was small, noisy and there was plenty of wind noise. Especially after the installation of coil springs, when the rear seat was noticeably shorter. The Universal offered the most space in the backseat. The heating, as always a difficult point with air-cooled engines, was nothing to write home about.

Duroplast

In 1965 Anton Geesink gave demonstrations of Judo on the roof of a Trabant at the AutoRAI. That was easy: Duroplast is particularly strong and tough. Geesink then walked demonstratively to other stands and asked if he, with his 110 kilos, could also fight with his opponent in their cars.

Duroplast was chosen due to a lack of steel in the GDR. West Germany also had to contend with this after the war and from Bremen came the Lloyd LP300 and later the LP600 with a body made of wood and plywood, covered with PVC synthetic leather. Sachsenring did better: the sheet material for the Trabant was pressed from phenolic resin and free cotton fiber waste from the Soviet Union at high pressure and temperature.

Trabant 1.1

After five years of negotiations, meetings, fitting and measuring, the Trabant with VW 1989 engine was presented in the autumn of 1100, while celebrating forty years of the GDR and demonstrations were held in all major cities. With the adult four-cylinder four-stroke of 40 hp, the old Trabi drove almost like a modern VW Polo with the same engine, but ... the price rose from 12.500 Mark to 18.500 Mark and few were willing to pay for that. The end was approaching, of both the land and his symbolic car.

And then the Wall fell

In 1989, East German State Secretary Günther Schablowski spoke the historic words during a press conference in XNUMX: "Yes, the borders will open, that has been decided by the State Council, but I do not read anywhere when that will happen, so it will be the same from now on." The Iron Curtain had divided Europe for two whole generations, over forty years, but those days were over. Not long after Schablowski's words, the odious barriers between East and West rose and the Trabantjes flooded the West German roads. This led to concern among the authorities. Wasn't this outdated, slow and smelly little monster a danger on the road?

Crash test Trabis

The TÜV tried it out and was pleasantly surprised. In crash tests, the Trabant proved to perform just as well as the latest VW Polo. The interior did not deform in a dangerous way and no splintering plastic parts penetrated into the interior. Even compared to the latest Golf, the Trabi didn't do too badly.

However, there were some objections. For example, there was no safety steering column. In a head-on collision, the hapless driver could become trapped between the steering wheel and seat, or in extreme cases be impaled. The placement of the petrol tank against the bulkhead behind the dashboard was also dubious: in the event of a leak, the petrol could easily ignite on the hot exhaust. However, the petrol tank could be closed quickly with a tap, operated on the dashboard. Just like with two-wheelers, that tap had an 'R' position. For the reserve stock. That was one thing that no other brand had to offer…

As a test, a Trabant was thrown off a mountainside where it bounced and collided and rolled over for a few hundred meters, with the result that everything still opened and closed as it should, after which it could be driven on. Conclusion: a Trabant was sturdier than it looked.

What Duroplast did in the event of a fire was also tested. That wasn't so good. The plating burned away completely within two minutes under strong smoke formation.

Bad for the Environment

Absolutely! The only thing that a Trabant does not or hardly produces is NOx. The combustion temperature is simply too low for that. With good, synthetic two-stroke oil it can be driven fairly clean. But the East Germans did not have that and the petrol was also of dubious quality at the time. There were still plenty of sulfur compounds such as mercaptan in it.

But the biggest problem was the final disassembly and destruction of the Duroplast parts. That cannot be processed into anything. Burning is the only option. In the comic Yugoslav film “White cat, black cat” by Emir Kusturica, a pig eats a whole Trabant. That is of course nonsense. Phenolic resin is not edible, not even by a resourceful pig.

After German reunification

The border opened in 1989 not only for East German citizens, but also for West German car dealers. The East craved modern, fuel-efficient, luxury cars and they were catered for, even if they were all too often overpriced cast-offs that hadn't earned the biannual TÜV or Dekra sticker. Within a few years, the air in East Germany was no longer filled with the sounds and smells of two-strokes, but with the soft hum of Kadett, Escort and Golf. Which were often smashed, because those who were used to the sound of a two-stroke often drove the four-stroke at a much too high speed.

The Trabis were dumped en masse and those who wanted to could get one to the Netherlands for little money. As a curiosity they sometimes stood as a third car next to a villa, or as a decoy duck at a restaurant, or as a planter somewhere on a roof. Until they were discarded there too.

Nowadays, in the cities where they used to be part of the street scene, they are in use for tours. In Berlin you can drive plenty of Trabi safaris, just like in the largest export country Hungary.

The judgement

A Trabant, especially the model 601, has made history as the icon of the GDR. A country that "built from ruins" as the national anthem sang, from the XNUMXs itself slowly stagnated and decayed economically and industrially.

Pros: solid, built for a long life; economical; easy to maintain and repair and a large, in the Universal enormous luggage space.

Negatives: slow; noisy; small; relatively high emissions of harmful substances and hopelessly outdated

That was the Trabant. Sometimes you also have to give the black sheep some attention.

Millions

Millions of people have enjoyed it. Millions have laughed about it. Millions have proven themselves daily and faithfully brought the owner or mistress, with or without the offspring, from A to B. Most Trabants served for decades. No one can take that away anymore.

Also read:
- Ostalgie: Trabant and MZ
- Trabant 601 S fire engine. Erik Riemersma's adventure
- Trabant 601 from Martin de Jong, an original Dutch car
- Trabant as a boat
- A motorcycle by mail order