All you need to know about ... TRABANT
Born: 1957 Nationality: East German
A model that became a marque, the Trabant's beginnings lie in the division of Germany after the second World War, when the Zwickau Automobile Factory (AZW) began production of a version of the pre-war DKW F8, first under the control of the Soviet occupation authorities, and later the East German government.
The F8, which had a 2-cylinder air-cooled 2-stroke engine, got an upgrade that made it the F9, the biggest difference being a 3-cylinder water-cooled engine. This car's production was eventually taken over by the Eisenach automobile factory in 1953, where BMW-derived EMW cars and the Wartburg were subsequently developed. AZW meantime developed a brand-new model, the P70, which featured a 690cc version of the 2-cylinder F8 power unit outputting 22hp. It was FWD, with a "crash" 3-speed gearbox. Because auto-quality steel was very hard to get, the company produced the body in a fibreglass plastic with resin and cotton as the components. Between 1955 and 1959, about 30,000 units were built, in saloon, kombi estate and coupé variants.
The Trabant brand itself was established in 1957, when a smaller-engined version, the P50, was launched. Essentially it was envisaged as something closer to the Goggomobil-type enclosed motorcycle transport than a true car. It had a 500cc engine, still in the simple 2-stroke format. It had a power of just 18hp, but sported a 4-speed gearbox to make up for that. A 600cc P60 followed, and up to 1964 some 132,000 of both models were built.
The P601 of 1964 had a substantially-rebuilt 594cc engine, with 26hp on tap, and was destined to remain in production for almost 30 years without major change. Incidentally, for East German ordinary folk, there was a 10-year waiting time from order, partly because a large proportion of the Trabants were being exported to the Soviet Union as part of a war reparations programme. However, as even the Soviet cars improved, the Trabant and particularly its very polluting engine proved less easy to export.
A "Kubelwagen" open "jeep" was produced for the army, and a civilian version was named the "Tramp". Another stillborn prototype concept, the P602V, was a 3-door hatchback powered by a 1-litre Skoda engine. And the P603, conceived to replace the P601 for the mid-1960s, was designed to use the Wankel rotary engine. It didn't make production either, nor did a 3-cylinder diesel version of the P601 or yet another attempt to use a Skoda engine, the P610, developed at the beginning of the 1980s. There was no lack of ideas at Zwickau, but no resources available to implement them in a very restricted German Democratic Republic economy.
In 1988, an agreement with Volkswagen provided the basis for a 45hp Trabant 1100, using the 1050cc engine from the Polo. For a time it seemed to give the little car a new lease of life, not to mention performance that had never been seen in a "Trabi" before - except perhaps in the 1986 P800 RS variant produced for rallying two years previously.
But in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and the subsequent opening of the borders between East and West Germany allowed a flood of used VWs and Opels to become available that were technologically and in comfort and style terms decades ahead of the Trabant. In 1990, the final P601 was built and a production run of VW Polos began. The last Trabant, an 1100, rolled off the assembly line in 1991, and was immediately transported to a local museum.
Ironically, Trabants have become something of a cult in recent years, and there are many clubs across Europe - and even in North America - whose members acquire and rebuild the "Trabi". Perhaps the use of the car on the cover of U2's Achtung Baby LP had something to do with it?
Best Car: P601
Worst Car: P601
Weirdest Car: Only ugly ones were produced.