The car is characterized by status, no matter what class or breed it belongs to. It would seem, how can the owner of a VAZ “penny” cause envy in a passerby? Nowadays, it's more of a sympathy. And in the year 1971 - even more so, fierce envy, up to hatred, which developed from class hostility. In the USSR, the prospect of owning personal transport stemmed from the costs not only of money, but also, of course, mental. Only in order for their name to be entered in the queue of potential motorists, citizens had to dance almost like shamanic dances, proving to the bureaucratic machine their need for personal transport. And if they still succeeded in this, the waiting time stretched to five to ten years.
And it wasn't just us. For example, in the countries of the Socialist Commonwealth, the situation was similar. In order to get the keys to the coveted car, people also had to languish in many years of waiting. The truly popular car in the GDR was the subcompact Trabant - a car full of contradictions. In Britain, it was branded the worst car, sending it to the infamous hundred of the same losers of all time. Yes, and in the country that gave birth to this miracle, from the very beginning it turned into an object of ridicule - like the VAZ 2101 in the USSR. But if now our man is even too lazy to spit in the direction of a rusty "penny", then the sight of a "Trabi" puffing in all its two measures makes him turn his head until a spinal crunch.
Philosophy of time and smoky zen
Against the background of typical modern models, the Trabant looks like an alien from a world alien to us, delivered by a time machine. Although the car is not a “disabled person”, but acts as a full-fledged road user
Citizens who happen to be lucky enough to see a Trabant on public roads always react the same way. Those who are not in the subject loudly ask “What is this ride?” and reach into your pocket in order to have time to click the car on your mobile phone. Well, others who understand more, recollecting themselves, look at their watches for some reason, probably to make sure that it’s not 1957 in the yard for a long time. But soon the bewilderment on the faces of both of them is replaced by the most childish smile that people save for a special occasion. I saw all this with my own eyes from the cockpit of the good-natured "Trabi", which I remember only from the good side. Our brief acquaintance with this yellow-sided little car happened about a year ago, and it was a cap: seeing him by chance in the stream of capital cars, I realized a bit late what a rarity was floating away into the distance, and I could only follow him with my eyes. Obtaining information about its owner was not an easy task, but it could be done. And when, after a while, we finally met, my delight knew no bounds.
Internal organization
For a frail, at first glance, two-cylinder carburetor unit, the Trabant engine, aka the heart, pulls quite cheerfully. Of course, he has trouble with accelerating dynamics, and the maximum speed is limited to 120 km / h on the speedometer, but a little agility pays off with maneuverability - in cramped city streets, the quality is invaluable. Dashing into the gap between the cars, turning around on the spot - this kid from the GDR simply has no equal. While we are maneuvering between wide foreign cars, Denis, by the way, recalls how he once drove around a long traffic jam on the ring road along the bike path - the Trabi gauge (1255 mm) was just enough. Of course, a nimble kid does this extremely rarely, significantly saving his owner time only in exceptional cases.1 / 4
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The gas tank is mounted above the engine and fuel flows there by gravity. This is probably why the manufacturer did not provide for a fuel level sensor in the cabin. Denis had to install it himself. Trabant's car rolled off the assembly line, equipped with a plastic measuring stick, which needs to measure the fuel level right in the tank ...
When it comes to long-distance driving, the Trabant obediently “cards” in a straight line at an average speed of 112 km / h, consuming 6.5 liters of low-octane gasoline every 100 km. Over time, his cheerful rattling must turn into monotonous torture, but Denis, having made a 12-hour Minsk-Ryazan cruise last summer, remained intact "both in spirit and in hearing." Thanks to the science of Trabant, he has now become an advanced master of self-discovery and will give a hundred points of odds to various salon experts. This also applies to the automotive business. According to Denis, the crankcase remained the only native part of the engine: everything else - the crankshaft, connecting rods, cylinders, and so on, was assembled from the world one by one, but in original performance and quality. After all the manipulations, the finished motor is able to pull not only 620 kg of the car's weight, but almost the same amount from above, that is, four crew members with their numerous belongings. When we were looking for a suitable place to shoot, we went behind the roundabout, away from the dull panorama of the sleeping bags. But instead of the expected forest and field, we stumbled upon an abandoned building: heaps of sand, rubble, potholes and pits with puddles. And there would be no way to let the yellow-bellied old man take a detour of this disgrace, but save his nerves. But we sent it to the very swamp ... "Trabi", to my surprise, passed the test with honor. The machine rushed to storm the high potholes with the courage of Alexander Matrosov and stubbornly walked where I was sure we would sit down. The low-revving (53 Nm at 2800 rpm) two-stroke hissed and spat, but propelled us to the finish line.
Denis also made the window regulator mechanism on his own, guided by the factory instructions that came with the car. Although the book was published in 1977 and was written in German, it is replete with valuable schemes that greatly facilitated the work of restoring Trabi
Being the culprit of this touching scene was not so pleasant, but it became possible to evaluate the work of the suspension. I don’t argue - the technologies in 1957 were not God knows what, but the Trabant assembled by Sachsering surprised with a smooth ride. "Derzhak" we checked even on country loops. The suspension of the car, although it was extremely simple, showed perfect kinematics. As Denis later explained, the design of the front was a symbiosis of stamped lower A-arms and a transverse spring, which plays the role of upper arms. The rear suspension was also independent and on a transverse spring, but its tubular arms were diagonal, fixed to the body through thick elastic rubber washers instead of silent blocks, which worked in compression rather than twisting. The steering system in Trabi turned out to be a rack and pinion type and provided easy and precise control. I swear, if the steering wheel had not been between my knees, I would have been ready to marvel at the tricks of this little car until dusk!
Not full metal shell
In the GDR, even in the premiere year of Trabant, the car became an object of ridicule, just like: this “four-wheeled friend of man” looked too archaic. For all its availability, during the years of shortage Trabi was not enough for everyone, and many had to wait for their car for more than one five-year period. Hence the vicious complaints about the low load capacity, low speed, cramped cabin and the simple execution of power units. “The Trabant has a common helmet for four passengers!”, says a popular joke, hinting at the relationship of a small car with a motorized carriage. And everything seems to be so, but not quite ...
Firstly, the Trabi motor has an original, even innovative layout for its time. The engine itself is located transversely to the compartment, and the main gear is located between it and the two-shaft gearbox. Something similar was then encountered only in Swedish, and a little later was applied by Mr. Issigonis on his own. Secondly, Trabant is the direct successor of DKW, in particular, the subcompact P70. But his engine had a completely different origin and belonged to a formation that produced light trucks. So what about the low power of Trabi - this is another grandmother said in two. Thirdly, the body for this two-stroke was assembled, albeit in the great socialist economy, but on the principle of “do no harm”. Welded from stamped steel panels, it was sheathed on the outside with easily accessible Duroplast, a stunning achievement of rationalization in production. This material was obtained from phenol-formaldehyde resin with a reinforcing filler from cotton tow - in other words, waste. When assembled in a conveyor, Duroplast was good because it turned out to be cheap to produce, and it was even easier to stamp molding panels. In addition to the decorative function, such plastic perfectly protected steel parts from moisture and, accordingly, corrosion. Therefore, a caring motorist is now quite capable of driving a Trabant for half a century.
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The emblem of Trabi was a stylized image of the letter "S", from the word Sachsenring. The entire company that produced cars was called Sachsenring Trabant
Thus, the manufacturer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke managed to cheaply and angrily cope with the creation of a people's car. The design of the Trabant cannot be called intricate, and its interior space and power units are optimized as much as possible. And on the part of Denis, it was the right decision not to make attempts to soundproof the cabin. This would not completely get rid of the zen rattling of the Trabi engine, but it could easily steal scarce centimeters in the cabin. Putting a new engine under the hood of this old-school kid means forever cursing your name in the circle of connoisseurs of rare cars. Yes, and it would be a shame to look in the mirror yourself - in the past, people won sports races on this two-stroke - and nothing, they remained alive ... In general, what the yellow-sided Trabant says today with his voice is the merit of his new owner.
Trabi Moses
Despite the fact that Denis calls his Trabant “MIO”, as by chance his first number was printed, I christened the car differently. A disgusting trait in character, hoarding, this native of the country of the socialist community owes his developers. It's scary to think, but in the elite version of the Trabant, "de Luxe", fog lights, taillights and even a tachometer were considered options! So among the virtues of the machine is not only antique appearance, but also internal asceticism. True, in everyday life you can’t call a car whimsical. And yet, Trabi-Moses managed to extort about $ 5,000 from his owner - for restoration.1 / 2
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Buildings racing spoiler, painted black - the only design liberties that the owner of "Trabi" allowed himself. But this element was not installed for the sake of force, but symbolizes the belonging of the car to the oldtimer rally, in which Denis and Trabant participate annually and receive awards
And there was something to restore. About seven years ago, Denis accidentally saw this car parked in the courtyard of one of the residential outskirts of Minsk. I learned the address of the owner from the yard grandmothers. It turned out that a certain lady, the heiress of a military retiree, who delivered a trophy car from the places of former service 40 years ago, walked in the mistresses of the Trabant. They agreed on the purchase right away - the girl considered the price tag of $ 150 for a non-working junk to be a gift from heaven. Soon, the comatose 1977 Trabant was moved from the street to a cozy garage, where Denis began his healing “dances with a tambourine” over him. In addition to the motor, assembled almost from scratch, the owner had to restore the body. When the surface duroplast was screwed in, Traby's chronic illnesses were exposed - the metal underneath rotted and crumbled in many places. Denis carved most of these details with his own hands. Plastic decor peeled off from time to time and also needed a new thing. Before painting, it was thoroughly sanded and coated with a primer. By occupation, Denis is an auto painter, so he approached this task with deep knowledge of the matter. So the Trabant was again covered with a native, yellow-white color scheme. And the black border along the edges of the sides is already from the category of author's modifications of its owner.
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Push button door lock. Pay attention to its mechanism. Ah, it's been a long time since it's been made!
An interesting story happened with the replacement of drive shafts and CV joints. The latter, by the way, have a special form. Actually, they do not look like either CV joints or crosses. And not every owner of "Trabi" knows about it. For example, the former owner of the car did not know, so he gave it to the domestic Kulibin to be torn to pieces. Well, they tried to make them on their own, which is why the knock that occurred during the movement made Denis go all the way to Germany: only there you could find original spare parts. The search required serious efforts, but still the lucky owner of the Trabant managed to order what he was looking for. The representative of the company delivered everything directly to the hotel. Satisfied Denis unpacked the box with a light heart, but when he saw its contents, he suddenly felt bad: instead of new parts, there were two rusty pieces of iron inside. But that was a false alarm - it turned out that it was not rust, but only a hardened forty-year-old grease! When Denis washed it off, the drive shafts shone with factory chrome.
Improvements and plans for the future
Among the author's modifications, Denis primarily refers to the transfer of the machine from 6V to 12V. To the best of his ability, he adheres to the traditions established for Trabant, but this archaism had to be excluded - for it is an extremely capricious thing in everyday life. After civilized electrification, the Trabi owner became available to such benefits as interior heating, a car radio and a windshield washer. Previously, a special handle was provided on the tidy for these needs, but Denis preferred automation. The stove in Trabant was not provided at all. The Eberspacher climate system was assigned to correct this defect. She turned out to be quite capable of keeping up in a twenty-degree frost. This is the second year that Denis has been using the Trabi as his primary car and can't remember anything about it bothering him. Denis also admitted that he changed the design of the seals in the engine in his own way. Their original is distinguished by packing, which is fraught with preventive cleaning of the motor every thousand kilometers. In the new form, the motor has already skated 40 thousand and it works without problems.1 / 2
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The interior of the Trabant… The red toggle switches and the levers under the dash are the controls of the very stove, with which “20-degree frost” is not terrible in winter. We also see the poker of the 4-speed gearbox integrated into the steering column and a brand new fuel gauge.
The only unreliable technological element of "Trabi" today is the ignition. The old system crumbled in Denis's hands when he honestly tried to revive it. It was not possible to get original spare parts - and this is the main problem with such rarities. The only way out was to improvise. The ideal ignition scheme has not yet been found, and the Oka system serves as a temporary option. But in wet weather, it does not last long, and the owner periodically has to change the switch and the ignition coil. Other consumables were also selected using the “poke method”. For example, Denis found brake pads in ... the automotive market! The answer to a banal question was the new original brakes, which the seller, moreover, was happy to give up for a penny, since they had been considered “dead weight” for a long time. It turns out that they fit some Italian cars from the 90s. But the anthers of the ball joint stand on the Trabant, like family, from the premium SUV Land Cruiser. But they are also priced accordingly. More than that, all systems in the car are on alert. Denis fulfilled his task perfectly, turning a bunch of rotten rubbish into a full-fledged and efficient "symbol of socialist progress", which was Trabant in his golden years. And the 720 days rolled back on it confirm this once again. Periodically there are minor breakdowns, such as replacing bearings in the front hub, silent blocks and bushings. But such things do not upset Denis. On the contrary, they are delighted, because many little things are changing here for the first time in 40 years! "High-quality repair - and the car will last another 40 years!" - the owner of "Trabi" is sure, admiring his unprecedented endurance.
As for the content of the yellow-sided baby, it is difficult for Denis to give an unambiguous answer here. At first, he kept a detailed time sheet of all the costs of repairs and consumables, but then he abandoned this business, fearing that his wife would one day see the dangerous document. But since the 601 S model, the passion for Trabants has grown into a chronic stage for the car painter. In the long run, he plans to buy a station wagon, or "Combi" in the original language, and turn it into a comfortable electric car. Did Denis peep this idea from German enthusiasts who tried to put something similar into production in 2009? “The first time I saw Trabant, I really fell in love. Therefore, I was ready to buy it for any money. And when, finally, he acquired it and began to bring it to mind, he had to hear enough from his neighbors in the shop. With particularly malicious scoffers, the conversation sometimes ended in a scuffle! Everyone harassed me with advice to buy a normal car. But I needed this car. For the soul. And now she lives, and even casual passers-by causes a smile. Traffic cops, if they slow down, do not look at the rights - they are simply interested in what is arranged in the car and how, ”Denis shares his secret. What to add here? It looks like it really is love.
The history of this plastic car is, in fact, the history of the German Democratic Republic. After the Second World War, the German town of Zwickau (Zwickau) went to the GDR. This city is known for the fact that on its territory there was a factory that produced cars of such famous brands as Horch and then Audi, which were part of the concern Auto Union. The plant was nationalized and named AWZ (Auto Werke Zwickau). In 1955, it began production of a front-wheel drive subcompact AWZ P70, a little later, called "Trabant" (model R-600).
The name arose under the influence of the launch in the USSR of the first artificial Earth satellite ("trabant", translated from German - "satellite"). This was also indicated by the logo in the form of a stylized letter "S".
The body of the car was made of a special, extremely durable plastic, known as "duroplast", for the production of which waste from the wood processing industry was used. Initially, the car was produced only with a 2-door sedan-type body. Later, station wagon models appeared and a model with a lightweight body without a roof and doors, called the Trump (Tramp - 1979) - it was quite actively used in the army.
The advantages of the machine are as obvious as its disadvantages are obvious. The unsightly but cheap car weighed only 620 kg, thanks to which, its weak two-stroke water-cooled engine could accelerate the car to 100 km / h in 21 seconds - not bad at that time for such a baby. The plastic case was not only light, but also completely corrosion-resistant. The car's suspension was originally designed for bad roads. He was not interested in hijackers by definition.
| Trabant 601 (picture taken from here) |
"Trabants" were produced for more than 30 years. Almost unchanged - the most significant was the appearance in 1963 of the model R-601 with increased engine size. All this puts the car on a par with such legends as Volkswagen Beetle, FIAT 600, Citroen 2CV And VAZ 2101- cars simple and unsightly, but put behind the wheel of millions of poor people around the world.
The little car became not just legendary - it was a real symbol of the GDR. Lines formed behind him. The capacities of East German industry were not enough and people were waiting for their car for years. The lucky ones who waited affectionately called their pet "Trabi" ( Trabi or Trabbi). By the way, immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a kind of ritual was performed - the burning of the Trabant car, as a synthetic symbol of a synthetic country that no longer exists.
In 1989, the Zwickau plant acquired Volkswagen. And on April 30, 1991, the production of plastic cars stopped. However, the history of "Trabant" is not over. Firstly, there were thousands of cars "on the go" throughout the country, the owners of which would never want to part with their favorites. And secondly, they planned to start the production of Trabant in another place: in 1997, in Uzbekistan, at the Tashkent plant Olympus. Outwardly, the machine remained the same, its technical part did not change either (only the control became manual - for the disabled). Instead of waste from the wood processing industry, they used waste from the cotton processing industry. The car was named "Olympus 601". The main advantage of the revived brand should have been its exceptionally low price, and therefore availability. However, production did not become mass and quickly ceased.
There are also rumors that they are going to revive the "Trabant" in South Africa. Under the name africar. A cheap, simple and reliable car will not go unnoticed by poor African families. As in the case of the Olymp 601, it is expected that the cost of the car will not exceed $3,000.
But that's not all. In 2008 the German company Herpa(a well-known manufacturer of collectible models) bought the rights to manufacture cars under the Trabant brand. But in this case, everything is different. The company is planning to start manufacturing cars with the latest technology and designs reminiscent of a good old plastic car. Sort of Volkswagen Beetle 2- an attempt to capitalize on the legendary name and on a sense of nostalgia. Whether the production of the new Trabant will begin or not, time will tell.
Models Trabant / Trabant
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History of the brand Trabant / Trabant
Trabant (full name Sachsenring Trabant) is a brand of East German small cars produced by the people's enterprise Sachsenring Automobilwerke. Trabant (from German "Sputnik") has become one of the symbols of the GDR. After the war, the territory of Germany, where the city of Zwickau was located, became part of the GDR. The former Horch plant was nationalized and merged with the Audi plant. In 1948, these enterprises became part of the Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau, abbreviated as IFA. Soon the production of passenger cars was resumed - the IFA F8 model, a simple and well-established design, which was a minimal modernization of the pre-war DKW F8 small car with a 2-stroke engine and a wooden body frame. Due to the shortage of rolled steel in the post-war years, soon part of the body panels began to be made from a material based on phenol-formaldehyde resin and cotton production waste - “duroplastic”. The unpainted Duroplast panels gave these machines a very distinctive look due to their brown color and Bakelite-like surface.
In 1949-1953, a larger and more modern model with a three-cylinder engine (also two-stroke) and an all-metal body was produced in relatively small quantities. The IFA F9 was based on pre-war DKW experimental developments, after which the production of this line of cars was transferred to the plant in Eisenach (former BMW). Since 1955, the Sachsenring P240 model of the Volga class, as well as a small car with a 0.7 liter motorcycle engine, which replaced the outdated F8 AWZ P70 Zwickau, went into the series. It was the direct ancestor of the Trabant, it also had a partially plastic body.
The development of the Trabant started in the early fifties. The prototype was built in 1954. November 8, 1957 at the plant in Zwickau began production of cars of a new brand, named "Trabant" in honor of the space satellite launched in the same year by the Soviet Union. The emblem was made up of a stylized letter "S" ("Sachsenring"). In 1963, the production of a mass model was mastered. About three million Trabants were made, which puts it on a par with such symbols of mass motorization as the Ford T (although five times more were produced), the Volkswagen Beetle or the MINI. Trabant was exported both to socialist countries (mainly Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary), and to a number of capitalist countries - for example, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and even Great Britain. It is curious that only individual copies of cars of this model fell into the USSR. Trabant production was completely discontinued in 1991. Today Trabant is a cult car with fans not only in the former GDR, but also in many other countries of the world, including the USA.
Trabant is an auto badge of the GDR. After the war, when Germany was divided between 2 warring
ideologically and economically by countries, and East Germany defected under
management of the USSR, in the German town of Zwickau was cooperated
enterprise for the production of automobiles on the basis of nationalized
Horch and Audi factories. Later, a common enterprise was co-operated under
titled Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau (1948).
The government of the GDR decided on the basis of this enterprise to start producing a mass-produced people's car (although at first it produced consumer products). The first socialist car, produced in the open spaces of German-controlled space in the era of the conquest of the USSR of Space, was dubbed Trabant (“Sputnik”). A competition was announced for the best name for the new car, and all 6 thousand employees of the plant, which released the new car, voluntarily-compulsorily took part in it.
In the autumn of 1957, the first Trabant rolled off the assembly lines. From the outside, this car looked like some kind of smaller copy of its own relatives outside the Steel Curtain. A small body, a high roof, funny rear wings - all this made the Trabant a memorable and exciting vehicle. This car had moderate dimensions (only 3.37 meters in length), four people were relaxed in it, and there was also a fully capacious trunk. This small car weighed only 620 kg, and the body did not corrode, because it was not iron.
Apart from the unusual appearance, the body of this car deserves special attention. In post-war Germany, in its socialist part, there was simply a damn lack of metal, but despite this, the Soviets made the car. In the Trabant car, only the frame for the body was made of steel, and everything else was made from cotton waste, which was impregnated with glue.
In the end, a material (duroplast) came out, which partially resembled plastic, but if you knocked on it, you got the feeling that it was cardboard. Duroplast was considered an innovative technology. It was a very cheap material, because the car was a little and everyone working could buy it.
How logical it is, but the Vietnamese did a huge part of the work on assembling the car, and the development itself has not changed for 30 years. It is also worth noting that the Trabant car was developed on the basis of the then-famous car from the manufacturer DKW and post-war IFA cars. The Trabant car was offered in 2 versions - as a car and station wagon, there was also a chic version that had rear window heating, front and rear fog lights. It was also made in the form of a convertible, a tractor, a limousine and even a military SUV. Under the hood was an engine with a volume of approximately 0.6 liters and a capacity of 18 liters. c (front-wheel drive and four-speed manual transmission). Such a weak engine did not prevent the car from accelerating directly to 90 km / h (Trabant consumes 6 liters per 100 km.).
The suspension on transverse springs coped well with the shortcomings of the roads, but you can’t really call a comfortable ride if the asphalt surface needs to be repaired. In the interior of this car, everything is ascetic. As for the security system or something else like that in Trabant, it was not there, and in the event of an accident at any speed, the car practically broke down before our eyes. At one time, this car was very popular, later everyone forgot it. Despite the fact that the Trabant had a number of shortcomings, this car was taken seriously in the West and so that it would not suddenly become popular with them, Austin Mini and Renault 4 were released.
Despite this, the Trabant car, unlike its own rivals, was cheap, just a little more than 7 thousand marks (the average salary is 400 marks per month). Despite its plasticity, with proper operation, the Trabant was distinguished by its special survivability. As in all socialist countries, a queue lined up for affordable cars, the same fate touched Trabant.
For special socialist merits, the party could issue out of turn or contribute to the purchase of a new Trabant car. It's fascinating that people who dreamed of Trabant built garages, got repair tools and could stand in line for about 13 years. A used Trabant was sold (it was impossible to sell, therefore a power of attorney was issued for very huge funds) at a speculative cost that exceeded the factory one, while the government fought with speculators. It was also not painfully easy to buy parts for this car, because the car itself was produced at the largest borders and there was absolutely no time left for the production of parts, because whoever had the opportunity to purchase at least some part, they took a few in reserve, and later exchanged for missing parts. Trabant was exported to socialist countries. camps.
As for modernization, she thought back in the middle of the 60s, but it was only a slight increase in engine power. In the midst of the thaw, it was decided to change the engine again, it was planned to order the engine from Germany, but these tests were not crowned with success. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demand for the Trabant car also fell, people were no longer interested in this car, they were fascinated by high-quality European cars. By that time, a little more than 3 million Trabants had rolled off the assembly lines.
In the middle of the 90s, the Zwickau plant slowed down, the production of cars was discontinued. After some time, the plant was returned to the descendants of Horch and Audi, and all the staff were fired.
At the moment, Trabant can be met occasionally, in Germany, with the help of it, tourists are amused. At the moment, in Germany (well, in some other countries of the world) there are car clubs dedicated to this car. Real fans of this car gather in Zwickau once a year to celebrate another anniversary and remember their youth.
In the 2000s, Germany conducted a social a survey among the former owners of Trabant and among them a little more than half agreed to purchase a refreshed Trabant, if it were produced. In the end, a group of enthusiasts bought the rights to the Trabant car brand and in 2009 at the Frankfurt Motor Show the concept of the Trabant NT electric car was demonstrated (body elements were made of the same, but more improved plastic).
No matter how annoying it may sound, this car did not go into the series due to lack of funds. On this, most likely, the history of the people's socialist car in Germany is not over yet, because in Africa they are thinking about releasing a revived Trabant for poor African families, while the cost will not exceed 3 thousand bucks.
The hit of the East German car market from the times of the GDR, which was the object of numerous jokes by local motorists because of its outward unsightliness and "frailty", on the significant day for the Germans of the reunification of the FRG, demonstrated amazing opportunities that not every modern car can "can handle".
The owners of the small Trabi, the Urland brothers, managed to accelerate the small car to a fantastic speed of 235 km / h, which is an absolute record for a two-cylinder car. Thus, motorists refuted the old joke that the Trabant reaches its maximum speed at the moment when it is being towed somewhere, UkraNews reports.
The first Trabi car was produced in 1957 and became the most popular car in East Germany despite its unprepossessing design and fragile materials from which it was made. It is noteworthy that the inhabitants of the GDR waited for years to receive a micromachine, the appearance of which has hardly changed over 30 years of production.
The legendary brand is not destined to become a thing of the past without a trace - it is possible to resume production of cars, though in a new, environmentally friendly version. The cult car of the GDR era was taken back into the "market circulation" by the Herpa company, which had previously specialized in creating large-scale models of cars. Her partner in the project will be Indicar, a small-scale car manufacturer. In addition, Trabant virtues, such as budget and simplicity of design, will not disappear, they will be supplemented with the most modern options.
According to some reports, the cost of Traby New in the European market will be approximately €10,000.
Recently, the authoritative American publication Forbes, whose opinion experts listen to, compiled a rating consisting of a dozen cars, whose appearance on the roads of the planet not only significantly invaded the lives of most of its individual inhabitants, but even served as a catalyst for significant political changes.
Surprisingly, Trabant, which in all respects lost to its capitalist brothers, entered the prestigious top 10. Forbes believes that lost competition in the car market, as well as in the consumer market as a whole, was a powerful reason for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the entire socialist camp. (Source "infocar.com.ua")
The insides of an old Trabi:
Actually, the new "Trabik" has an official website - trabant-nt.de - on which its new German ideologists and manufacturers (they are also the main applicants for investors and pushers of the old people's favorite into the arms of the modern people) notify the masses about the progress of the project, which, in turn, it was renamed from "newTrabi" to "Trabant nT" and it was under this name that the concept was presented in 2009 at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
The site also says that if a good financial partner is found to put the Trabant nT into mass production, the first new electric Trabants could be on the road as early as 2012. Also, on one of the available videos about Trabant nT, information was announced that the price of a new Trabant would be about 20 thousand euros, but this is still a very estimated price.
Reference:
« Trabant"(German. ), full title - Sachsenring Trabant ("Sachsenring Trabant"), is a brand of East German small cars produced by the people's enterprise Sachsenring Automobilwerke. "Trabant" has become one of the symbols of the GDR.
background
After the war, the territory of Germany, where the city of Zwickau was located, became part of the GDR. The former Horch factory was nationalized and merged with the former Audi factory. In 1948, the factories entered the Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau, IFA for short.
IFA F8 Soon, the production of passenger cars was resumed at the enterprise - the IFA F8 (de: IFA F8) model, a simple and well-established design, which was a minimal modernization of the pre-war small car DKW F8 (de: DKW F8), which had a two-stroke engine, front-wheel drive, a light spindle-shaped frame and wooden body frame. Due to the shortage of rolled steel in the post-war years, soon part of the body panels began to be made from a material based on phenol-formaldehyde resin and cotton production waste - “duroplastic”. The unpainted Duroplast panels gave these machines a very distinctive look due to their brown color and Bakelite-like surface.
In 1949-1953, a larger and more modern model with a three-cylinder engine (also two-stroke) and an all-metal body, the IFA F9, based on the pre-war experimental developments of DKW, was produced in relatively small quantities, after which the production of this line of cars was transferred to the plant in Eisenach ( ex BMW) - it eventually led to the Wartburgs.
Since 1955, the Sachsenring P240 (de: Sachsenring P 240) model of the Volga class went into the series, as well as a small car with a 700 cm³ motorcycle engine, which replaced the outdated F8 - AWZ P70 "Zwickau". It was the direct ancestor of the Trabant, it also had a partially plastic body (the fenders, bumpers and another part of the body panels were plastic).
There were three options - a two-door sedan, station wagon (Kombi) and coupe. The last version was limited-edition (about 1,500 copies were produced) and had a completely hand-made body (body panels, except for plastic fenders, radiator grilles and some other elements, were steel, and the frame was steel and, partially, wooden), as well as a luxurious leather interior and that's it. the same 700cc engine.
History of creation
Development started in the early fifties. The prototype was built in 1954.
November 8, 1957 at the plant in Zwickau began production of cars of a new brand, named "Trabant" in honor of the space satellite launched in the same year by the Soviet Union (in German "Trabant" - "satellite").
The emblem was made up of a stylized letter "S" ("Sachsenring" - "Sachsenring").
Technical features
The car was transversely located in-line two-stroke, two-cylinder air-cooled carburetor engine with a volume of 0.6 liters. (originally 0.5 l.) and a power of only 26 hp. (originally 18 hp). It was structurally derived from pre-war DKW models and their post-war IFA counterparts.
The two-shaft gearbox had a very original design for those years (a modernized version of the pre-war DKW), associated with a transverse arrangement of the power unit - subsequently this scheme became widespread, and currently it dominates the global automotive industry.
In the West in those years, the English MINI became the first production model with such a placement of the power unit, but its main gear was located in the engine crankcase - this scheme did not receive much further distribution.
Some of the cars, mainly intended for the disabled, were equipped with a Hycomat semi-automatic transmission (the gears were switched manually by the driver, but the clutch worked automatically, controlled by an electromechanical unit through a special hydraulic system) - a very progressive solution for those years.
The suspension of the car was extremely simple, but at the same time it had a fairly perfect kinematics.
The front independent suspension was a design with stamped lower A-arms and a transverse spring acting as the upper arms.
The rear suspension was also independent, also made on a transverse spring, but its tubular arms were diagonal, fixed to the body through thick elastic rubber washers instead of silent blocks - they worked in compression, not in twisting.
The steering was already rack and pinion, fairly light and precise.
The body of the car, contrary to popular belief, was not all-plastic - unlike, for example, the American Chevrolet Corvette or the Soviet Start and Dawn.
The body frame of the Trabant was ordinary, made of steel stampings, but the outer decorative panels were made of the so-called "duroplastic" - a material based on phenol-formaldehyde resin (phenolic resin) filled with waste (tows) of cotton production, which was done to save steel leaf, which was in short supply in those years. The same technology was used for earlier East German models, for example, IFA F8 and AWZ P70 "Zwickau" (see above for them).
Under license, parts for various cars (for example, hoods for MINI) from Duroplastic were produced in the UK by the well-known manufacturer of plastic products Formica, but there this material was not as widespread as in the GDR.
Duroplast was to some extent similar to fiberglass, which found some use in the automotive industry of other countries in the same years, but compared to it was much more suitable for mass production: gluing fiberglass parts was (and remains to this day) a complex, time-consuming process, economically viable only with a small scale of production, and duroplast body panels were made by simple stamping.
As a result, the car weighed only 620 kg, and when properly maintained was not very vulnerable to corrosion. In addition, this made it possible to vary the design to a very significant extent due to the development in the production of plastic panels, the equipment for the manufacture of which was much cheaper than stamps for metal body parts. However, after the restyling of 1964, none of the many external modernization projects of the Trabant (for example, developed jointly with the Czech Skoda Trabant P1100) was implemented, and by the end of its release in 1991, the car looked like a real antique - although its mechanics throughout the entire period of production was subjected to minor upgrades and improvements.
Modifications
Along with the basic two-door sedan, a station wagon ("Kombi", in a number of sources - "Universal") was produced. Also, a military modification was produced - "kubel" (an open car with a simplified body without side doors) and its civilian version - Trabant Tramp.
Starting with the 601 model, configurations were offered - S and de Luxe, which had additional equipment - fog lights and taillights, reversing lights, a trip mileage meter, and so on.
In addition, there were numerous experimental samples that did not reach mass production.
For example, together with Skoda, a hatchback with a four-stroke engine was developed. In 1979, together with the specialists of the plant in Eisenach (which produced the Wartburgs), a restyled version was developed that outwardly very much resembled the Wartburg itself. Also, the restyling project was developed at the Sachsenring itself in 1981-82.
None of these modernization options went into mass production. But since 1988, they began to produce a modification of the Trabant 1.1 with a 1100 cc engine from the Volkswagen Polo, which gradually began to replace the version with a two-stroke engine. Initially, it was planned to combine the modernization of mechanics with restyling, however, in practice this did not happen.
It should also be noted the experimental "Trabants" with rotary engines of the Wankel type, with which they experimented a lot around the world in the sixties and eighties, but it only came to mass production in Germany (NSU), the USSR (VAZ) and Japan (Mazda ").
Model evaluation
At the time of its creation and in the early years of production, the Trabant did not particularly stand out from other "subcompacts" of those years with two-stroke engines, such as the West German DKW and Borgward-Lloyd, the Swedish Saab 92 and Saab 93, or the Japanese Subaru 360. However, as the sixties gradually abandoned noisy and “dirty” two-stroke engines and the general improvement of cars, it quickly became obsolete, and by the middle or end of the decade it was clearly below the average European level.
Later models in the eighties were equipped with a four-stroke engine from the West German Volkswagen Polo, but this could no longer significantly modernize the technically decrepit design.
Approximately three million Trabants were made, which puts it on a par with such symbols of mass motorization as the Ford T, the Volkswagen Beetle or the MINI. Trabant was exported both to socialist countries (mainly Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary), and to a number of capitalist countries - for example, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and even Great Britain. It is curious that only individual copies of cars of this model fell into the USSR.
In the GDR itself, the demand for Trabants during the entire production of the model significantly exceeded the number of cars supplied to the retail network, as a result they were not available for free sale, and buyers had to wait for their turn for years, in some cases up to 13 years and more.
Today, the Trabant is a cult car with fans not only in the former GDR, but also in many other countries of the world, including the USA.
Significance of Trabant cars
Trabant cars, along with such cars as Ford T, VAZ-2101, Volkswagen Beetle, Citroen 2CV and Fiat 600, was a car that “lifted entire nations on wheels”. The goal of its creators was to create a car that would be widely available to all segments of society, which, accordingly, they succeeded.
Due to its simplicity and low cost, the Trabant was widely used in motorsport.
