Posts Tagged ‘go trabi go’

The Trabant Rolls On

In the 1991 movie “Go Trabi Go“, a family from the former East Germany (GDR) journeys through Western Europe in one of the most well-known icons from the Soviet bloc, the eponymous Trabi or Trabant. Along a stretch of highway in the western section of the then newly united Germany, their car breaks down. The father calls a mechanic who asks what make the car is.

“A Trabant,” the man answers with a dash of pride.

“A Trabant? I hope you brought enough glue,” says the mechanic.

From the moment they first rolled off the assembly line of the VEB Sachsenring auto plant in Zwickau, Germany in 1957, Trabants have been both cherished and ridiculed. Families in East Germany and other nations within the Iron Curtain had to wait as many as 15 years to get a Trabant; thus anybody who possessed one strove to take great care of it. The average lifespan of the more than 3 million Trabants which were manufactured was 28 years. Older Trabants sometimes cost more than newer versions because they could be procured more quickly.

The Trabant, if anything, was a symbol of Communist-era resourcefulness. Because the high price of steel imports would have made manufacturing and purchasing costs prohibitive, the trunk lid, hood, fenders and doors were made of Duroplast, a resin plastic related to bakelite. For Trabant drivers, routine tasks like filling the tank with gas were quite involved. A Trabant owner had to lift the hood and mix in two-stroke oil together with the gas into a tiny 24-liter (six-gallon) tank.

While most drivers in Eastern Europe have since replaced their Trabants with Renaults, Volkswagens, Citroens and other western cars, it is not uncommon to see a Trabant chugging its way along the road. Nineteen years after the last one was produced, there are approximately 52,000 Trabants registered in Germany.

Bela “Spike” Kovacs from Bekescsaba, Hungary still relies on his Trabant to get him where he needs to go. “Why would I need a Mercedes when my Trabant gets me to the supermarket or to go see my daughter on the other end of town?” Kovacs said.

“It is a great car. I rarely have to take it into the repair shop,” added Kovacs, who has been driving his latest Trabant (a Trabant 601) since 1989.

Kovacs ordered his first Trabant (also a 601) in 1973 and had to wait more than two years before he could finally pick it up in Debrecen in northeast Hungary, 200 km from his home in Bekescsaba.

A diehard contingent of Trabant aficionados exists not only in Eastern Europe but throughout the world. A Facebook search uncovers several groups and pages dedicated to the car. Meanwhile, webpages focusing on the Trabant can be found in dozens of languages.

Richard Zabehlicky owns and operates Trabant Canada in Tottenham, Ontario, which sells Trabants to people throughout North America. “I was intrigued with the Trabant from the moment I first saw it when I lived in Prague in 1999. Some people told me it was junk, but it sparked my interest,” Zabehlicky said.

Zabehlicky brought a Trabant with him when he returned to Canada. “I would take the Trabant to auto shows and often pull up beside Ferraris and Maseratis,” he recounted. “People at the shows would be more interested in the Trabant than the sports cars.”

Although the last Trabant was manufactured in 1991, the brand may still have a future – and it may be in the unlikely color of green. Herpa, a Germany company that makes miniature cars, bought the rights to the Trabant name and has since, along with a firm named IndiKar, been planning to produce a line of environmentally clean vehicles under the Trabant brand in 2012.

The new version of the formerly eco-unfriendly, smoke-spewing Trabant is an electric car called the nT (New Trabi). A prototype of the vehicle was revealed at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt on September 15, 2009. It runs on a lithium-ion battery, achieves a maximum speed of 90 mph and travels 100 miles without a recharge. According to Herpa, the battery can be recharged overnight by using a regular power network at a cost of roughly one euro (or $1.40.)

Herpa says the response to changing the Trabant into a trendy, energy-saving vehicle has been overwhelmingly positive. The company handed out 7,000 questionaires at last year’s automobile exhibition in Frankfurt; 98 percent of those surveyed “wanted a modernized Trabant to return to the market,” according to the company.

“The nT should become a fun electric car, which is handy and has a historic background at that,” said its designer Nils Paschwatta.

The new Trabant will come equipped with a feature for those nostalgic for the old days: artificial engine noise, the volume of which can be selected by the customer.