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"The small car with great ride comfort and high performance"
received in the 1950s, the Zwickau engineers the task of building an affordable, robust and economical family car. Due to lack of sheet metal was Thermoset - a plastic made from phenolic resin and cotton - is used. The Ur-Trabis were called P70 and P50. In a survey conducted in the factory, the name was Trabant, the attendant or companion means found. For election, proposals like gore, body-pearl and Lux had stood. At the Leipzig Fair won the first round car to the public. The first ad ran: "The small car with great comfort . And high performance, "The East German racing legend Heinz Melkus was in the magazine" Zeit im Bild "(issue 30/1961) and advice on how to deal with the Trabant:
clutch :" Sit down next Sunday in your Trabant and take an hour. You need to be alone with your car, so 'out on a lonely farm or sample in a quiet street! (...) If the right foot of the throttle properly adjusted 'to let you focus on the left foot and the car slowly rolling away. The left leg has to bring about it so that a cup of coffee that you provide on the mat not ausschwappt. "
care : "Right, some things can be allowed to make in the workshop, and preferably a good relationship with a good workshop, including the knowledge, which places the Masters cigars are as much to your Trabant as gasoline in the tank. (...) But for a few drops of oil on the shift linkage will give the satellite forward to the next kilometers a happy smile. And with individual air pressure you can conjure up in your small car the comfort of a street cruiser
driving ". Continue miss much in town or in the partial load range does not, then, at least once every 200 kilometers to drive a few miles at full throttle, so that everything settled oil burns from the exhaust. If no blue haze can be seen more in the rear view mirror, you can stop. "
The car maker screwed up the power until 1964 to 26 hp. The body of the then imported model P601 also had straight lines. The people took it back to good. Produced were also a combined bucket and a version for the National People's Army. A satellite team competed in rallies in Eastern and Western Europe - even in Monaco - and took top positions. Since then, the Trabant was essentially changed nothing. The P601 is comfortable enough for the workers, said the SED business leaders, and a new model, the situation would demand further. The waiting time for the more than 10,000 marks expensive small car was well over ten years.
It was finally with minimal improvements such as an electric windscreen wipers and an instantaneous fuel consumption display ("mice Cinema"). Usually quite innovative, however, was the invention of a private inventor, who developed a Trabi-roof tent, popularly called "Pension Sachsenruh. The color palette gave the P601 simple a touch of exoticism. The East Germans had a choice between banana yellow, brilliant coral, light ivory, Persian Orange, Veneziarot and many other colors. The model "de Luxe" was in two colors and are available with chrome bumpers. Never went into production a promising new developments such as the Trabant P610 - 45 horsepower and 125 km / h fast. The four-stroke engines from the 1970s is strongly reminiscent of the first models of the VW Polo and is in Zwickau, August Horch Museum to see.
Sonja's catchy tune, a lot of jokes and a lot of nicknames
The Trabi as fairly reliable force brought its owner to all socialist popular destinations from the Baltic to the Balaton. Even the sand male transported to his dream of sand. Occasional problems such as a torn belt could be with a women's tights easily correct yourself. "Did you hammer Pliers, wire, are you coming up to Leningrad, "it said in the vernacular.
dedicated in 1971, the singer Sonja Schmidt Crimmitschau car a hymn. The refrain of their nostalgia-earwig is: "A sky-blue Trabant rolled through the country in the rain. The big sky was gray, cloudy and gray. But I went in the sky-blue Trabant through the countryside in the rain. Oh yes, thank you very much, dear chauffeur for this tour. "
The TV show" you have to have luck, "presented by the later" Wetten, dass. "Presenter Wolfgang Lippert According to his website was the first and only mission of the GDR, where you could win a car - and a Trabi. The show name sounds almost macabre, given the unimaginable today Trabant-order times. The economy of scarcity was a fertile ground for the emergence of jokes. Here's a few:
How many workers does it take to build a Trabi? Two: One fold, one sticks.
What does the name 601? 600 appointed him one got him.
How do you double the value of the Trabi? By volltankt him. And as he was quadrupled? Put a banana into the back seat!
When the Trabi reached its top speed? If he towed is. There
also Trabi nicknamed it so few, racing board, legend on wheels, covered spark plug, Sachsen Porsche, Mercedes Krenz, walking aid, workers 'and peasants' Mercedes, plastic bombs, Carton de disgrace, asphalt, bubble, asphalt pits, cardboard box or little stinker. 1989 helped the "Zwickau refugee case" of thousands of East Germans to escape, exit or the first trip to the West. A little later a comedy wave rolled through the cinema ("Go Trabi Go" in two parts, "Trabant Goes to Hollywood").
The 30th April 1991 - a black days for Zwickau carmaker
The reality however, in Zwickau offered little cause for laughter. Early 1990, wrote that the "time" on a television report from Zwickau and the VEB Sachsenring: "For the first time ever tolerated a television camera in the works (...). The film showed a hazy Zwickau, the air filled with the fumes of, coking Bebel ', the houses decayed, dilapidated, depressed people who fled because of all the friends and children. (...) The only happy-provoking sight: those funny little cars' (BBC), the Trabi positive variable in their silhouette, prove the existence of the GDR and Zwickau, at least atmospherically their humor skills. (...) In the campaign for factory workers stay, but this is difficult, the more are gone and now missing. (...) The Zwickau factory buildings have been eighty years old, expensive cars were once built here. Much is made by hand, and the working conditions are catastrophic, "
A look slightly modified Trabant 1.1 with VW Polo four-stroke engine was still on the market - but this was broken off for the turbo-Trabi long ago.. On 30 April 1991 rolled a pink Trabant than 3,096,099. and last car off the line. This day was the then Prime Minister of Saxony Kurt Biedenkopf in memory. "I will never forget," he said in 2009 at a panel discussion in Dresden. The production stoppage was "a tremendous "Was" exciting and impressive, but also sad event in some incarnation of this car was finished "
The rapidly privatized Sachsenring Combine went later in the automobile industry to go public.. Made the headlines "Sachsenring" affair "for corporate donations for the campaign of Saxony Saxony" in advance of the Saxon state parliament election in 1999 and the insolvency of the flagship operation. Since 2006, the Leipzig HQM Sachsenring is one group. The ex-directors Ulf and Ernst-Wilhelm Ritter in 2009 convicted of embezzlement in the millions and accounting manipulations to long prison sentences.
is still the Trabi as perhaps the most ridiculed car in the world - wrongly, as the former head of VW and Zwickau Freeman Carl H. Hahn of the "SUPERillu" said: "When I look back on the years after the 2nd World War I, when I led before my eyes, just how much the car locations in the East, with the dismantling suffered - it's amazing and commands respect, which cars have been developed there in the postwar years. There were many creative people at work that came from the tradition of listening and the Auto Union. Trabant I see it as a masterpiece of engineering, especially under the difficult conditions at that time. A brilliant improvisation! "
The Trabant Today: cult car, electric, new jokes
The number of registered vehicles is gradually decreasing. On the 50th Trabi birthday in 2007 were registered with the Federal Motor Vehicle Office or 52 432 vehicles of that type. Fewer and fewer stations offer the necessary mixture 1:33 or 1:50. In the new city environmental zones Trabis are prohibited. Nevertheless, the cult car, and world famous. In Berlin and Dresden Trabi safaris are a hit with tourists. Trabi souvenirs there are in all versions, colors and sizes to buy. Clubs are located even in the U.S., Canada and England . The latter is a membership magazine called "Knight Rider" out.
In Zwickau, the Mecca of Trabi community remember, a bedroom community near the road Horch Museum, and a satellite of Memorial in George Square to the legendary car. The International Trabant Driver Meeting (ITT) exchange, thousands of fans of the cult Mobile. Diversity and originality of the converted Trabis are amazing - the range of the stretch limousines to lower down racer. The world economic crisis, the popular meeting a temporary end. After a two year break in 2011 the 16th ITT take place - not at the airport, but on the weather-proof place of international friendship. The Trabant is announced to the City Council, "a true classic car at the center be.
Berlin's Governing Mayor Wowereit was the occasion of the 20th Fall Jubilee in front of a Trabi-mural on the East Side Gallery pictures. The Berlin Wall decorated with paintings in the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is extensively refurbished and handed over in time for the festivities were. Even on some of 1,000 oversized dominoes that have been built between the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz and knocked over, found original pictures Trabant.
20 years after the wall came down, the vehicle provided in the art of attention. At the International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main, the "Trabant nT" ("new Trabi ") as" World Premiere "was presented. After the presentation, entertainer Stefan Raab was on his show "TV Total" with new jokes about the electric car (47 kW, 130 km / h, 160 km range) funny:
"The good old Trabi is back. What goes with the Trabi would, but actually work out with the wall. "
" The new Trabi is an electric car. This naturally raises the question for many East Germans: where do we get the current "
" This car has a range of exactly 160 kilometers. He was just built that one just does not come from Zwickau in the West. "
The suburban Wilkau Haßlau-developed eco-scooter was originally to be ready for production by 2012. As has been found apparently no investor can cause delay in production. Despite these initial difficulties in 2010 gave the initiative "Germany - Land of Ideas", a special award to the makers of the Trabant nT.
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