This article is about the automobile. For the Icelandic band, see Trabant (band). The Trabant is an automobile formerly produced by East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Saxony. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to other countries in, but also outside the communist bloc. The main selling points were that it had room for four adults and luggage, and was compact, fast, light and durable. Despite its poor performance and smoky two-stroke engine, the car has come to be regarded with affection as a symbol of the more positive sides of East Germany (in former East Germany) and of the fall of communism (in former West Germany, as many East Germans streamed into West Berlin and West Germany in their Trabants after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989). It was in production without any significant change for nearly 30 years. Trabant is an electronic-pop/rock band from ReykjavÃk, Iceland. ...
Image File history File links Trabant_P50. ...
Automakers, also known as carmakers, automobile manufacturers, motor manufacturers, or the automobile industry are companies that design and manufacture automobiles. ...
Sachsenring AG buildings Sachsenring AG was a producer of vehicles in the former German Democratic Republic, its most famous product being the Trabant. ...
Cars can come in a large variety of different body styles. ...
A notchback full-size luxury sedan. ...
Estate car body style (Saab 95) A station wagon (United States usage), wagon (Australian usage, though station wagon is widely used) or estate car (United Kingdom usage) is a car body style similar to a sedan car but with an extended rear cargo area. ...
“Car†and “Cars†redirect here. ...
This article is about the state which existed from 1949 to 1990. ...
Sachsenring AG buildings Sachsenring AG was a producer of vehicles in the former German Democratic Republic, its most famous product being the Trabant. ...
Zwickau is a city of Germany, in the Bundesland Saxony (Sachsen), situated in a valley at the foot of the Erzgebirge, on the left bank of the Zwickauer Mulde, 130 km (82 miles) southwest of Dresden, south of Leipzig and south west of Chemnitz. ...
Location Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DED Capital Dresden Minister-President Georg Milbradt (CDU) Governing parties CDU / SPD Votes in Bundesrat 4 (from 69) Basic statistics Area 18,416 km² (7,110 sq mi) Population 4,252,000 (11/2006)[1] - Density 231 /km...
This article is about the state which existed from 1949 to 1990. ...
During the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc (or Soviet Bloc) comprised the following Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Albania (until the early 1960s, see below), the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia. ...
The two-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine differs from the more common four-stroke cycle by completing the same four processes (intake, compression, power, exhaust) in only two strokes of the piston rather than four. ...
Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ...
Boroughs of West Berlin West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ...
East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, November 20, 1961. ...
The name Trabant means "fellow traveler" (Satellite) in German; the cars are often referred to as the Trabbi or Trabi, pronounced with a short a.
Since it could take years for a Trabant to be delivered from the time it was ordered, people who finally got one were very careful with it and usually became skillful in maintaining and repairing it. The lifespan of an average Trabant was 28 years.[1] Used Trabants would often fetch a higher price than new ones, as the former were available immediately, while the latter had the aforementioned waiting period of several years.
There were two principal variants of the Trabant, the Trabant 500, also known as the Trabant P 50, produced 1957-1963; and the Trabant 601 (or Trabant P 60 series), produced from 1963 to 1991. The engine for both the Trabant 500 and 601 was a small two-stroke engine with two cylinders, giving the vehicle modest performance. At the end of production it delivered 25 horsepower (19 kW) from a 600 cc displacement. The car took 21 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h (62.5 mph) and the top speed was 112 km/h (70 mph). There were two main problems with the engine: the smoky exhaust and the pollution it produced. They produce nine times the amount of hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxides of the average European car of 2007. The fuel consumption was a modest 7 liters/100km.[2] This article is about a unit of measurement. ...
Kwai Lo is Chinese slang for foreigner or ghost person. ...
A cubic centimetre (cm3) is an SI derived unit of volume, equal to the volume of a cube with side length of 1 centi metre. ...
One complete cycle of a four cylinder, four stroke engine. ...
Kilometre per hour (American spelling: kilometer per hour) is a unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector). ...
The Trabant was a steel monocoque design with roof, bootlid, bonnet and doors in Duroplast, a form of plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton. This helped the GDR to avoid expensive steel imports, but in theory did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it has actually proven to be superior to some modern small hatchbacks.[3][4] The Trabant was the second car to use Duroplast, after the "pre-Trabant" P70 (Zwickau) model (1954-1959). The duroplast was made of recycled material, cotton waste from Russia and phenol resins from the East German dye industry making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.[5] Monocoque (French for single shell) is a construction technique that uses the external skin of an object to support some or most of the load on the structure. ...
Duroplast is a composite material used in the body of the Trabant. ...
For other uses, see Plastic (disambiguation). ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Renault Megane hatchback, a proper hatchback which has shown huge success in Europe Peugeot 306 hatchback, with the hatch lifted and the parcel shelf tilted for access Hatchback is a term designating an automobile design, containing a passenger cabin with an integrated cargo space, accessed from behind the vehicle by...
The Zwickau was a car made in East Germany by Automobilwerk Zwickau (AWZ) between 1956 and 1959. ...
 The short-lived Trabant 1.1 model with VW Polo four-stroke engine More than three million Trabants were made.[6] Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1344x905, 592 KB) Summary The short-lived Trabant 1. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1344x905, 592 KB) Summary The short-lived Trabant 1. ...
1994 VW Polo MK IIF. 1996 VW Polo. ...
History
 Trabant 601: A Kombi/station wagon version was also produced.
 Trabants Car Show in Aleksandrow Kujawski, Poland
 The mechanically simple, easily tuned engine makes Trabants interesting for low-cost rallying Originally planned as a three-wheeled motorcycle, the decision to build a four-wheeled car came late in the planning process.[7] The name Trabant was chosen in an internal contest in 1957, the year of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Previous motorcycle production at Sachsenring had been under the aegis of AWZ (Auto-Werke Zwickau). Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 520 pixelsFull resolution (1224 × 796 pixels, file size: 233 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ...
Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 520 pixelsFull resolution (1224 × 796 pixels, file size: 233 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1632 × 1224 pixel, file size: 912 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Trabant Metadata This...
Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1632 × 1224 pixel, file size: 912 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Trabant Metadata This...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1000x597, 246 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Trabant ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1000x597, 246 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Trabant ...
Sputnik 1 The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. ...
For other uses, see Satellite (disambiguation). ...
The Zwickau was a car made in East Germany by Automobilwerk Zwickau (AWZ) between 1956 and 1959. ...
The Trabant was not a particularly advanced car when it was launched; by the late 1950s small cars in western countries mainly used cleaner and more efficient four-stroke engines, as employed in the Volkswagen. The four-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine is the cycle most commonly used for automotive and industrial purposes today (cars and trucks, generators, etc). ...
Volkswagen AG (ISIN: DE0007664005), or VW, is an automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Germany. ...
The Trabant's designers expected production to extend to 1967 at the latest, and East German designers and engineers created a series of more sophisticated prototypes through the years that were intended to replace the Trabi; several of these can be seen at the Dresden Transport Museum. However, each proposal for a new model was rejected by the GDR leadership for reasons of cost. As a result, the obsolete Trabant remained in production unchanged; in contrast, the Czechoslovak Škoda automobiles were continually updated and exported successfully. The Trabant's production method, which was extremely labor-intensive, remained unchanged, and much of the work was carried out by Vietnamese guest workers. In 1989, a smaller version of the Volkswagen Polo engine replaced the elderly two-stroke engine, the result of a trade agreement between the two German states. The model, known as the Trabant 1,1 also had minor improvements to the brake and signal lights, a revised grille and replaced the coach spring-suspended chassis with one using MacPherson and Chapman struts. However, by the time it entered production in May 1990, German reunification had already been agreed to. The inefficient, labor-intensive production line was kept open only because of government subsidies. Demand plummeted, as residents of the east preferred second-hand western cars. The production line closed in 1991. Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Škoda Auto ( (help· info)) is a Czech automobile manufacturer and one of the four oldest car producers in the world. ...
A foreign worker (cf expatriate), is a person who works in a country other than the one of which he or she is a citizen. ...
Volkswagen Derby The Volkswagen Polo is a supermini manufactured by Volkswagen of Germany. ...
A simple MacPherson strut suspension on the left front wheel of a rear-wheel drive vehicle. ...
A Chapman strut is an automobile suspension device. ...
Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ...
This article is about the 1990 German reunification. ...
Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ...
Although Trabants had been exported from East Germany, they became well-known in the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall when many were abandoned by their Eastern owners after migrating westward. News reports inaccurately described them as having cardboard bodies. This is likely due to the fact that the body of the Trabant was Duroplast, a material that, in East German production, often made use of varying quantities of different fibers, such as cotton, or occasionally paper. East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, November 20, 1961. ...
Paperboard is a paper-like material, usually over ten mils (0. ...
Duroplast is a composite material used in the body of the Trabant. ...
In the early 1990s it was possible to buy a Trabant for as little as a few marks, and many were given away. Later, as they became collectors' items, prices recovered, but they remain very cheap cars. Green Trabants are especially popular as they are said to bring good luck.
In the late 1990s, there were plans to put the Trabant back into production in Uzbekistan as the Olimp.[8]. However, only a single model was produced. [9] Olimp is a summer resort on the Romanian seacoast, on the Black Sea, 7 km (4. ...
In 1997, the Trabant was celebrated for passing the "Elchtest" ("moose test"), a 60 km/h swerve manoeuvre slalom, without toppling over like the Mercedes-Benz A-Class infamously did. A newspaper from Thuringia had a headline saying "Come and get us, moose! Trabi passes A-Class killer test".[10] The Moose test, also known as the Elk test or Älgtest in Swedish, has been used in Sweden for decades to test how a certain vehicle acts when avoiding a sudden danger, such as an elk. ...
To slalom is to zigzag between obstacles. ...
2004 Mercedes-Benz W169 A200 The Mercedes-Benz A-Class (popularly known in the U.S. as the Baby Benz) is a small family car produced by the German automaker Mercedes-Benz. ...
The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen) is located in central Germany and is considered one of the smaller of Germanys sixteen Bundesländer (federal states), with an area of 16,200 km² and 2. ...
In 2007 Herpa, a miniature vehicles manufacturer in Bavaria, showed a scale model of the "New Trabi" and revealed that they planned to introduce it they bought the rights to the name and plan to produce a series of 5000 cars. It would likely have a BMW engine and be sold for around €50,000.[11][12] Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...
Models - Trabant P50 - later called Trabant 500 (Limousine and Universal [Combi])
- Trabant 600 (Limousine and Universal)
- Trabant 601 (Limousine, Universal and Tramp (Cabrio))
- Trabant 601 S & Trabant 601 De Luxe (With optional equipment including rear and front fog lamps, rear white light and an additional odometer)
- Trabant 601 Hycomat (Made for users with missing or dysunctional left leg. It had included an automatic clutching system)
- Trabant 1,1 (Limousine, Universal and Tramp (Cabrio))
A cabriolet was a light, two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with a folding calash top, seating two persons facing forwards, one of whom was the driver. ...
A cabriolet was a light, two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with a folding calash top, seating two persons facing forwards, one of whom was the driver. ...
Prototypes - Early P50 (Now in Sachsenring Museum. Built in 1954)
- Trabant 603 (Build with the Eisenach factory that produced Wartburg. Built in 1979)
- Trabant 601 (Whole body was made from steel. Never went in production because of costs of production. Built in 1982)
- Trabant Hatchback ( Working with skoda ,a czechoslovacian car company,they made the car. You can see it in Sachsenring Museum)
- Trabant Diesel (It used a small (about 900ccm) diesel engine. Many of the improvements where further used in the production model of Trabant 1.1 . Built in 1986, you can see it in Sachsenring Museum)
- Early Trabant 1.1 (It had a various body style than the producion model. Built in 1988)
Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ...
Trabants in popular culture
 The Painted Trabants used by U2 on their Zoo TV Tour hanging in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The rock group U2 used Trabants as props on their Zoo TV Tour, including several vehicles suspended from the ceilings of concert halls. These cars can now be seen suspended from the ceiling at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. A Trabant also appears on the cover of their album Achtung Baby, and in the music video for "One." Image File history File links Trabant cars from U2s Zoo TV Tour hanging in the lobby of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum, 2005, by Rick Dikeman From www. ...
Image File history File links Trabant cars from U2s Zoo TV Tour hanging in the lobby of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum, 2005, by Rick Dikeman From www. ...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 783 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2480 × 1900 pixel, file size: 382 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Mural on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in an East German Trabant...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 783 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2480 × 1900 pixel, file size: 382 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Mural on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in an East German Trabant...
Salle des illustres, ceiling painting, by Jean André Rixens. ...
East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, November 20, 1961. ...
East Side Gallery The East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. ...
Brezhnev redirects here. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
This article is about the Irish rock band. ...
For the fan club-exclusive album released from this tour, see Zoo TV Live. ...
A Concert hall is a cultural building, which serves as performance venue, chiefly for classical instrumental music. ...
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at sunset. ...
Cleveland redirects here. ...
Singles from Achtung Baby Released: 21 October 1991 Released: 24 November 1991 Released: March 1992 Released: 8 June 1992 Released: August 1992 Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2, released on 19 November 1991. ...
A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. ...
Achtung Baby track listing Even Better Than the Real Thing (2) One (3) Until the End of the World (4) The Best of 1990-2000 track listing Electrical Storm (William Orbit Mix) (4) One (5) Miss Sarajevo (6) U218 Singles track listing Sunday Bloody Sunday (11) One (12) Desire (13...
A feature film about the Trabant, Go Trabbi Go, a comedy about an East German family making their way across Europe released shortly after reunification. In it, they highlight the performance gap between it and newer models, but it was regardless a film laced with admiration.[13]
A bright blue Trabi features in Good Bye Lenin!, the award-winning German film made in 2003 about the fall of the wall. Good Bye, Lenin! is a German tragicomedy film, released internationally in 2003. ...
A scene in the movie Black Cat, White Cat by Emir Kusturica shows a Trabant being eaten slowly by pigs. This is referred to by the Serbian rock group Atheist Rap (Ateist Rep), which has a song named "Wartburg limuzina" in which they mention that pigs ate a half of their "Trabant". They also have a separate song, "Blue Trabant". Crna macka, beli macor (Black Cat, White Cat) is a comedy/romance movie directed by Emir Kusturica in 1998. ...
Emir Kusturica (Serbian Cyrillic: Емир КуÑтурица; IPA: ) (born November 24, 1954 in Sarajevo) is a Serbian filmmaker and actor. ...
Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ...
Atheist Rap is a punk rock band from the city of Novi Sad, Serbia. ...
In the 1996 Czech film Kolja, the protagonist is ecstatic at finally getting a Trabant. Kolya is an award-winning 1996 Czech Republic motion picture drama that demonstrates how lives can be reshaped in unexpected ways. ...
The American movie Spy Game (2001) features a car chase involving a Trabant being driven by the spy Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), who is trying to smuggle an East German from East Berlin over to West Berlin. This article is about the movie. ...
William Bradley Brad Pitt(born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. ...
The name of the Czech band Traband is an obvious pun, also name of Icelandic electro-rock band Trabant, just like the Polish rock band Los Trabantos. Trabant is an electronic-pop/rock band from ReykjavÃk, Iceland. ...
The Trabant can also be seen several times in the videogame Half-Life 2 produced by Valve Corporation. Half-Life 2 (HL2) is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game that is the sequel to Half-Life. ...
Valve Corporation is an American video game developer based in Bellevue, Washington, USA, made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ...
The Trabant also appears in the videogame Interstate '82 as a secret car, the Stein PappKarton. According to the game, the PappKarton was made in an East German refrigerator factory. The German word Pappkarton translates to cardboard box. Interstate 82 is a computer game for the PC. It was developed by Activision and released in 1999. ...
Cardboard is a generic non-specific term for a heavy duty paper based product. ...
A long-running parody in the U.S. automotive magazine Car and Driver in the late 1980s (before the Berlin Wall opened) showed its competitor Motor Trend fawning over the Trabant and declaring it "Car of the Year." Cover of Car and Driver from age of psychedelic lettering Car and Driver is an American automotive enthusiast magazine. ...
Motor Trend is one of the oldest automotive magazines still publishing. ...
Car of the Year is a phrase usually considered to have been invented by Motor Trend magazine in the 1950s for their annual award for best automobile. ...
The Trabant was affectionately known in West Germany as "Spark Plug with Roof" (Zündkerze mit Dach) because of its small size.
A blue Trabant can also be seen throughout the film Everything Is Illuminated starring Elijah Wood. [1] This article is about the book. ...
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor. ...
In the sixth leg of the US television series The Amazing Race 6, taking place in Hungary, the teams were required to use Trabants that were decorated as racecars. Several teams were delayed by the notable unreliability of the cars. The Amazing Race 6 was the sixth installment of the popular reality television series The Amazing Race. ...
The Trabant has also appeared in the music video for Texas by Chris Rea.
The 1991 film Driving Me Crazy centers around the invention and subsequent theft of a Trabant modified to run on turnips rather than gasoline.
Gallery A blue Trabant Download high resolution version (1500x1072, 466 KB) 600cc 1983 Trabant P601L at Bristol Car Show, The Downs, Bristol, England. ...
| Trabant two-stroke engine Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1908x1272, 898 KB) Summary Trabant two-stroke engine. ...
The two-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine differs from the more common four-stroke cycle by having only two strokes (linear movements of the piston) instead of four, although the same four operations (intake, compression, power, exhaust) still occur. ...
| Trabant 1.1 model with VW Polo four-stroke engine Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1344x905, 592 KB) Summary The short-lived Trabant 1. ...
1994 VW Polo MK IIF. 1996 VW Polo. ...
The four-stroke cycle (or Otto cycle) of an internal combustion engine is the cycle most commonly used for automotive and industrial purposes today (cars and trucks, generators, etc). ...
| A Trabant with all-over advertising, used as a "billboard on wheels" in Prague Download high resolution version (1280x960, 329 KB)Trabant in Prague File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
For other uses, see Prague (disambiguation). ...
| Outfitted for volunteer fire fighting service Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
| Police version Image File history File links Trabant_Polizeiversion. ...
| Mural (post-Wende, on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery near Berlin Ostbahnhof This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...
German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - in English often called East Germany) were incorporated into The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) (FRG). ...
East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, November 20, 1961. ...
East Side Gallery The East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. ...
The station concourse contains shops and eating facilities Looking west from a mainline platform, facing the two S-bahn platforms The station has been known by several names over its 160-year history Berlin Ostbahnhof (translates from German as Berlin East Station) is a mainline railway station in Berlin, Germany. ...
| Easy parking, Dobrich, Bulgaria. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 553 pixelsFull resolution (1024 × 708 pixel, file size: 77 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) (All user names refer to en. ...
Dobrich (Bulgarian: Добрич) is a town in northeastern Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Dobrich Province. ...
| Trabbi in London 2007 Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1536 pixels, file size: 1. ...
This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...
| Trabant as a racing car Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ...
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References
See also Barkas was the East German manufacturer of small delivery vans and minibuses named the B1000. ...
Dacia (IPA: ) is a Romanian car maker which is a subsidiary of Renault group. ...
FSO Polonez from late 1980s The FSO Polonez is a Polish motor vehicle produced from 1978 to 2002. ...
For other uses, see Lada (disambiguation). ...
A Messerschmitt KR200. ...
Ostalgie is a German term (the English equivalent would be eastalgia) referring to nostalgia for life in the former East Germany. ...
Škoda Auto ( (help· info)) is a Czech automobile manufacturer and one of the four oldest car producers in the world. ...
The Zastava Koral / Yugo 45 and family are vehicles produced by the Zastava corporation, both for local use in the production country of Serbia and for export around the world. ...
The Wartburg was a car manufactured in East Germany. ...
With widespread censorship of literature, the media and the arts, political jokes were one of the main outlets for internal criticism of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). ...
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