Трабант: Шығыс Германияның автомобиль тарихы

1957–1991 automobile brand of VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau
the car

Trabant is a series of small cars produced from 1957 until 1991 by former East German car manufacturer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. Four models were made: the Trabant 500, Trabant 600, Trabant 601, and the Trabant 1.1. The first model, the 500, was a relatively modern car when it was introduced. It featured a duroplast body on a steel chassis, front wheel drive, a transverse two stroke engine, and independent suspension. Because this 1950s design remained largely unchanged until the introduction of the last model, the Trabant 1.1 in 1990, the Trabant became symbolic of the former East Germany's stagnant economy and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in general. Older models have been sought by collectors in the United States due to their low cost and fewer restrictions on the importation of antique cars. The Trabant also gained a following among car tuning and rallying enthusiasts.

VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau had its origins in the former Auto Union/DKW business which had operated out of the site prior to the war, and the company's first products were essentially copies of pre war DKW designs. Following the partition of Germany, Auto Union re established itself in West Germany (ultimately evolving into Audi), leaving VEB Sachsenring with the two stroke engine inherited from DKW. The Trabant was the result of a planning process which had been intended to design a three wheeled motorcycle.

The first of the Trabants left the VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau factory in Saxony on 7 November 1957. It was a relatively advanced car when it was formally introduced the following year, with front wheel drive, unitary construction and independent suspension. The Trabant's greatest shortcoming was its engine. By the late 1950s, many small West European cars (such as the Renault) had cleaner, more efficient four stroke engines, but budgetary constraints and raw materials shortages mandated an outdated (but inexpensive) two stroke engine in the Trabant. It was technically equivalent to the West German Lloyd automobile, a similarly sized car with an air cooled, two cylinder four stroke engine. The Trabant had a front, transversely mounted engine and front wheel drive in an era when many European cars were using rear mounted engines or front mounted engines with rear wheel drive. Its greatest drawback was its largely unchanged production; the car's two stroke engine made it obsolete by the 1970s, limiting exports to Western Europe. The Trabant's air cooled, engine—upgraded to in 1962–63—was derived from a pre war DKW design with minor alterations during its production run. The first Saab car had a larger (764 cc), water cooled, two cylinder two stroke engine. Wartburg, an East German manufacturer of larger sedans, also used a water cooled, three cylinder, , two stroke DKW engine. The original Trabant, introduced in 1958, was the P 50. Trabant's base model, it shared a large number of interchangeable parts with the latest 1.1s. The 500 cc, P50 evolved into a version with a fully synchronized gearbox in 1960, and received a , engine in 1962 as the P 60. The updated P601 was introduced in 1964. It was essentially a facelift of the P 60, with a different front fascia, bonnet, roof and rear and the original P50 underpinnings. The model remained nearly unchanged until the end of its production except for the addition of 12V electricity, rear coil springs and an updated dashboard for later models. The Trabant's designers expected production to extend until 1967 at the latest, and East German designers and engineers created a series of more sophisticated prototypes intended to replace the P601; several are displayed at the Dresden Transport Museum. Each proposal for a new model was rejected by the East German government due to shortages of the raw materials required in larger quantities for the more advanced designs. As a result, the Trabant remained largely unchanged for more than a quarter century. Also unchanged was its production method, which was extremely labour intensive. Production started from 34,000 p. a. in 1964, reached 100,000 p. a. in 1973, to a high of 150,000 in 1989. A licensed version of the Volkswagen Polo engine replaced the Trabant's two stroke engine, the result of a trade agreement between East and West Germany. The first prototypes were built in 1988, with pre series cars appearing in 1989, but series production only began in May 1990 By which time the two German states had already agreed to reunification. The locally built EA111 series engine was given the model code BM 820 by the East Germans; the plant also made 1.3 liter versions for the Wartburg 1.3 (BM 860) and the Barkas utility vehicle (BM 880). The model, the Trabant 1.1, also had minor improvements to its brake and signal lights, a renovated grille, and MacPherson struts instead of a leaf spring suspended chassis. By April 1991, after only eleven months, the Trabant 1.1 was discontinued. In total, 3.7 million Trabant vehicles had been produced. However, it soon became apparent that there was no place for the Trabant in a reunified German economy. Its inefficient, labour intensive production line had only survived thanks to government subsidies. The Zwickau factory in Mosel (where the Trabant was manufactured) was sold to Volkswagen AG; the rest of the company became HQM Sachsenring GmbH. Volkswagen redeveloped the Zwickau factory into a centre for engine production; it also produces some Volkswagen Golfs and Passats.

According to Richard Leiby, the Trabant had become "a symbol of the technological and social backwardness of the East German state." Trabants became a symbol of the GDR's serious flaws in the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when many were abandoned by their Eastern owners who migrated west. Unlike the Lada Niva, Škoda Estelle, Polski Fiat (design licensed from the Italian car manufacturer) and Yugo, the Trabant had negligible sales in Western Europe. A Trabant could be bought for as little as a few Deutsche Marks during the early 1990s, and many were given away. Although prices recovered as they became collectors' items, they remain inexpensive cars. In her Bodywork project, performance artist Liz Cohen transformed a 1987 Trabant into a 1973 Chevrolet El Camino. The Trabant was planned to return to production in Uzbekistan as the Olimp during the late 1990s, but only one model was produced. Former Bulgarian Foreign Minister and Atlantic Club of Bulgaria founding president Solomon Passy owned a Trabant which was blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2002 and in which he took NATO Secretaries General Manfred Wörner, George Robertson, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for rides. In 2005, Passy donated the vehicle (which had become symbolic of Bulgaria's NATO accession) to the National Historical Museum of Bulgaria. In 1997, the Trabant was celebrated for passing the moose test without rolling over, as the Mercedes Benz W168 had; a Thuringian newspaper's headline read, "Come and get us, moose! Trabi passes A Class killer test". The Trabant entered the world of diplomacy in 2007 when Steven Fisher, deputy head of mission at the British Embassy in Budapest, used a 1.1 (painted as close to British racing green as possible) as his diplomatic car. American Trabant owners celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall with the Parade of Trabants, an annual early November rally held in Washington, D. C. The event, sponsored by the privately owned International Spy Museum, includes street tours in Trabants, rides, live German music and displays about East Germany.

The Herpa company, a Bavarian miniature vehicle manufacturer, bought the rights to the Trabant name and showed a scale model of a "newTrabi" at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show. Plans for production included a limited run, possibly with a BMW engine. A Trabant nT model was unveiled two years later in Frankfurt. The Trabant nT consortium includes Herpa, the German specialized auto parts manufacturer IndiKar and the German automobile engineering company IAV. The group was looking for investment, design and production in the Trabant's original hometown of Zwickau, with sales "in 2012". The Trabant nT electric car would be equipped with a asynchronous motor powered by a lithium ion battery.