If I were to tell you that our Classic for the Month of August is an East German Trabant, you would probably picture a small, cheap, poorly built car, powered by a extremely smoky and noisy engine.
However, you would be totally wrong!
Our Classic this month is a pristine Trabant 601 SO that is owned by the Montag-Girmes family and which they have restored to better than factory-fresh condition. They acquired the car in May 1990 from the original owner and have driven it all over the UK and Europe, including 2000 klms overland on its way to Cyprus. The car is a late production model and, as a consequence, is powered by the more refined and powerful two stroke engine which produces 28bhp. This car also demonstrates that, with a quality restoration and regular maintenance, the engine is reliable, smooth and smoke free.
The Trabant is famous for its use of Duroplast moulded body panels, which is a form of composite construction similar to glass-fibre, but is made from waste cotton fibres and phenol resin. The car also has several unusual features. There is no fuel pump or fuel gauge, and the fuel tank is located in the engine compartment. Fuel is therefore gravity feed to the engine, and a dip-stick is provided to gauge the amount of fuel remaining in the tank!
The Montag-Girmes car is by no means a budget car as it is equipped with the original sound deadening carpets and headlining, a clock and a rev. counter. All these were considered to be luxury items back in 1990 East Germany and were expensive optional extras. The restoration and the current condition of this car are of exceptional quality, but the car is not a “garage queen” and is used on a regular basis, often to be seen on the school run. (The photograph shows the car parked in front of the Volkerschlachtdenkmal Monument in Leipzig.)
Useless Facts No. 127
Over 3.7 million Trabant cars were produced in the former Audi(Auto Union/DKW) factory in East Germany in a 34 year period from 1957. Trabant translates from the German as “satellite” as the car was launched in the same year as the first Russian Sputnik satellite.
