Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Trabant shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Trabant offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Trabant at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Trabant? Wrong! If the Trabant is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Trabant then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Trabant? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Trabant and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Trabant wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Trabant then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Trabant site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Trabant, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Trabant, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

{{Infobox Automobile| name = Trabant| image = | manufacturer = Sachsenring AG (Limousine, Saloon)
2-door [station wagon (Universal)]
Zaporozhets-->

The Trabant is an automobile formerly produced by East Germany auto maker Sachsenring AG 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 cycle 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.

The name Trabant means "fellow traveler" (Satellite) in German language; 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.http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript402.htm#4 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 Cubic centimetre Engine 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.http://www.transtrabant.cz/small-car/

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 did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it has actually proven to be superior to some modern small hatchbacks. The Trabant was the second car to use Duroplast, after the "pre-Trabant" P70 (Zwickau (car)) 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.http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript402.htm#4 four-stroke engineMore than three million Trabants were made. "Trabant Canada"

History

Originally planned as a three-wheeled motorcycle, the decision to build a four-wheeled car came late in the planning process. DW: Go, Trabi, Go! East Germany's Darling Car Turns 50 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 (car)).

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 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 Czechoslovakia Škoda Auto 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 strut 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.

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 Paperboard 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.

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.http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/1997/08/16/050.html. However, only a single model was produced. http://courses.wcupa.edu/rbove/eco343/040Compecon/Soviet/Uzbek/040900autos.txt

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".http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=9663

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. Inetrnational Herald Tribune: The 'Trabi' automobile, once a symbol of East Germany, to be revived Deutsche Welle: German Firm Plans to Launch Revamped Trabant

Models

Prototypes

Trabants in popular culture on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in a Trabant (Spring 2002).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 (U2 song)."

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.http://www.dvd-live.de/phpBB2/reviewlist.php?id=441

A bright blue Trabi features in Good Bye Lenin!, the award-winning German film made in 2003 about the fall of the wall.

A scene in the movie Crna macka, beli macor (movie) 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".

In the 1996 Czech film Kolja, the protagonist is ecstatic at finally getting a Trabant.

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.

The name of the Czech band Traband is an obvious pun, also name of Icelandic electro-rock band Trabant (band), just like the Polish rock band Los Trabantos.

The Trabant can also be seen several times in the videogame Half-Life 2 produced by Valve Corporation.

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.

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."

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.

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 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 Image:1983.trabant.P601L.arp.jpg|A blue TrabantImage:Trabant Engine Block.jpg|Trabant two-stroke engineImage:Trabant 1.1.jpg] four-stroke engineImage:DSCF0008trabant.JPG]Image:Trabant Feuerwehrversion.jpg|Outfitted for volunteer fire fighting serviceImage:Trabant Polizeiversion.jpg|Police versionImage:Berlin_Wall_Trabant_grafitti.jpg|Mural (post-Wende, on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery near Berlin OstbahnhofImage:Trabant-park-dobrich.jpg], Bulgaria.Image:TrabiLondon.JPG] 2007

References See also

External links

{{Infobox Automobile| name = Trabant| image = | manufacturer = Sachsenring AG (Limousine, Saloon)
2-door [station wagon (Universal)]
Zaporozhets-->

The Trabant is an automobile formerly produced by East Germany auto maker Sachsenring AG 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 cycle 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.

The name Trabant means "fellow traveler" (Satellite) in German language; 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.http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript402.htm#4 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 Cubic centimetre Engine 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.http://www.transtrabant.cz/small-car/

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 did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it has actually proven to be superior to some modern small hatchbacks. The Trabant was the second car to use Duroplast, after the "pre-Trabant" P70 (Zwickau (car)) 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.http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript402.htm#4 four-stroke engineMore than three million Trabants were made. "Trabant Canada"

History

Originally planned as a three-wheeled motorcycle, the decision to build a four-wheeled car came late in the planning process. DW: Go, Trabi, Go! East Germany's Darling Car Turns 50 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 (car)).

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 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 Czechoslovakia Škoda Auto 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 strut 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.

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 Paperboard 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.

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.http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/1997/08/16/050.html. However, only a single model was produced. http://courses.wcupa.edu/rbove/eco343/040Compecon/Soviet/Uzbek/040900autos.txt

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".http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=9663

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. Inetrnational Herald Tribune: The 'Trabi' automobile, once a symbol of East Germany, to be revived Deutsche Welle: German Firm Plans to Launch Revamped Trabant

Models

Prototypes

Trabants in popular culture on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery featuring Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker riding together in a Trabant (Spring 2002).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 (U2 song)."

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.http://www.dvd-live.de/phpBB2/reviewlist.php?id=441

A bright blue Trabi features in Good Bye Lenin!, the award-winning German film made in 2003 about the fall of the wall.

A scene in the movie Crna macka, beli macor (movie) 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".

In the 1996 Czech film Kolja, the protagonist is ecstatic at finally getting a Trabant.

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.

The name of the Czech band Traband is an obvious pun, also name of Icelandic electro-rock band Trabant (band), just like the Polish rock band Los Trabantos.

The Trabant can also be seen several times in the videogame Half-Life 2 produced by Valve Corporation.

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.

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."

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.

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 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 Image:1983.trabant.P601L.arp.jpg|A blue TrabantImage:Trabant Engine Block.jpg|Trabant two-stroke engineImage:Trabant 1.1.jpg] four-stroke engineImage:DSCF0008trabant.JPG]Image:Trabant Feuerwehrversion.jpg|Outfitted for volunteer fire fighting serviceImage:Trabant Polizeiversion.jpg|Police versionImage:Berlin_Wall_Trabant_grafitti.jpg|Mural (post-Wende, on the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery near Berlin OstbahnhofImage:Trabant-park-dobrich.jpg], Bulgaria.Image:TrabiLondon.JPG] 2007

References See also

External links



Sachsenring Trabant
About the factory, with pictures of the cars and the history.

The Wartburg Trabant IFA Club UK (Hosted by Alternative Autos)
The Wartburg Trabant IFA Club UK . This Club Web Site Has Now Moved to http://www.ifaclub.org.uk/

Trabant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 ...

Moleville Trabant Stories
All things Trabant related plus on going story of getting my Trabant back on the road ... Trabant Trek - The Book July 23, 2008 . I have posted about Trabant Trek a couple of times ...

Contact | UK Trabant Stories
ebay. trabant ddr cult car hand screen printed t-shirt; pesky trabant comic style t-shirt medium; trabant 601: owner's handbook, original item, rare?! trabant air filter; retro ...

BBC - h2g2 - The Trabant: The East German People's Car
h2g2 is the unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything, a guide that's written by visitors to the website, creating an organic and evolving encyclopedia of life

Trabant Canada
Welcome to T R A B A N T . C A Your Canadian source for buying and servicing your Trabant P601. Toronto Ontario, Canada. Trabant Imports, Exports

Homepage of the Wartburg Trabant IFA Club UK
WELCOME TO THE HOME PAGE OF THE . CLICK HERE TO ENTER. All information in this site © 2003-7 Wartburg Trabant IFA Club UK

Trabant - Wikimedia Commons
Deutsch: Der Trabant, genannt Trabi, wurde vom DDR-Autobauer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau, ein Unternehmen im Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau (IFA), hergestellt.

Category:Trabant vehicles - Wikimedia Commons
Media in category "Trabant vehicles" The following 11 files are in this category, out of 11 total.

 

Trabant



 
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