61–70 of 107 posts
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_(company) [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_Schwalbe (in German)
Trabant motor is a 2-stroke engine. Oil is mixed with the fuel on the tank and the fuel tank is positioned above the engine so they flow through gravity. This means only a single filter for fuel and oil is used and no need for fuel or oil pump. A very durable configuration. They are also very easy to repair. These features made Trabant such a durable car that owners eventually abandoned them in working condition inst…
Every time a Trabbi Safari passes by me around Checkpoint Charlie, the smell makes me almost want to puke instantly.
I can‘t even imagine by now how East Berlin must have smelled 40 years ago and what toll it must have taken on the health of residents.
I lived in Germany when the wall came down. For a while after this, it was common to see Trabant debris on the side of the autobahn. The Trabant had a very low top speed, and the East German drivers weren't aware of the fast-lane etiquette on the autobahn, so they would get rear-ended quite often. "According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, around 34,500 Trabants were registered in Germany at the beginning o…
> Volkswagen settled in Zwickau, Chemnitz and Eisenach and developed the Golf and Polo models there. Opel has been producing cars there since 1992, along with numerous new suppliers that call Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt their home. The author mixed something up there. VW only settled in Zwickau and Chemnitz, which were involved in Trabant production. However VW neither settled in Eisenach nor was there anythi…
[1] Here the picture of a "Wartburg" from 1898: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg-Motorwagen#/media/Dat...
I'm Hungarian, born in '81, so I grew up around Trabis, Wartburgs, Skodas, Moskvitch, Ladas. My mom's first car was a Trabant. At some point in the 80s we moved to W-Germany for a few years and we took the Trabant, it was not a good look (we were living in Boeblingen, near Stuttgart, location of the Porsche HQ). The magic of social and geographic mobility and the tech boom: today, 30 years later, I live in Dubai, whe…
> we were living in Boeblingen, near Stuttgart Grew up in Herrenberg (a few kilometers from Böblingen). When neighbors learned that my father was thinking of replacing his old Audi someone put a Mercedes calendar on our doorstep. Swabians are very particular with their cars.
I wonder when we'll see retro-designs of these, i.e. like the modern Mini and the Bumblebee. One model I'm still missing is the 2CV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV
I’ve seen this project ages ago a it’s apparently dead now: https://m.facebook.com/NewWarsaw
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 313 is sitting in some kind of uncanny valley for me. It’s close enough to good looking that the oddities really stand out.
True, I guess that's mainly because it had to share parts with the 311 model. Still it's by far the most elegant car made in East Germany. For a really odd looking car, check out the Melkus ;) It actually looks great here in the photos, but in reality some things look very odd (also because it was a bit like a Frankenstein car, using parts from regular East German cars): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melkus_RS_1000
Other iconic vehicles from the GDR are the motorbikes from Simson, especially the "Schwalbe".[1][2] After the reunification there were even fan clubs in western Germany. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_(company) [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_Schwalbe (in German)
The directors, sensing a propaganda coup in the making, arranged to send him the very next car off the line.
Two weeks later the oil man was in a bar, speaking with some friends.
“Ah ordered me one o’ them Trabis them folks over there in East Germany wait 12 years to get,” he drawled.
“And you know what? Them East Germans are so efficient. Wah, just last week they sent me over a little plastic model so I can know what to expect!”
(Taken from http://www.nickselby.com/2013/08/25/and-now-a-little-trabant...)
