Revell Trabant 601S 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall

[GeeBee]

It has been 30 years since the first Trabant 601 sailed through the Wall to West Berlin. Revell honors the memorable event with a special set, which includes a diorama in the form of a 3D puzzle on which the built model of the satellite can be placed.- Kit of the Trabant 601, including instructions and decals

[Mike999]

Thanks. Revell sure has worked those Trabbi molds! They've re-issued it for almost every Berlin Wall anniversary, including the 20th and 25th.  I'm guessing this is the "new" Trabant, with engine detail.  Their original Trabant kit, issued in 1990, was a curbside with no engine. But it did have a big roof rack, which isn't in the newer kit.

Here's the 25th anniversary kit:

 

Wrong scale, but for the 30th anniversary, AFV Club has released a 1/35 scale kit with 3 sections of the Berlin Wall:

Edited September 6, 2019 by Mike999
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[Tom Geiger]

I went to Berlin as a kid and remember going to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there, dedicated to escapes from East Germany.  I remember one small car that had a place in the boot behind the rear seat to hide a person.  They had mirrors set up that made it look deep and empty.

We stood and watched at rush hour as Trabbies made their way back home from West Berlin.  A lot of people from East Germany worked in West Berlin, kinda like the US/Mexican border.  This was probably 1971.

[Mike999]

I visited Hungary in 2008 and there were still quite a few Trabants running around there.  Went on a tour of "Statue Park" outside Budapest. The Hungarians took all the huge Soviet statues out of the city after Communism collapsed, and turned them into a tourist attraction.  The park also has a copy of Stalin's giant empty boots, commemorating the tearing down of his statue during the 1956 revolution.  A blue Trabant was sitting outside the souvenir shop, sort of like a "gate guard." Here's a pic of it (not mine, found on the internet).

Edited September 6, 2019 by Mike999
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[robertw]

I rather like that 3D puzzle display base. I'd be interested in one if I hadn't made my own which incorporated an actural piece of the wall that I chipped out in the summer of 1990 when I was in East Berlin. Made my suitcase a little heavy for the rest of the trip but was a great souvenir of an important time in history.

[Tom Geiger]

Here's my little hunk of the wall.  My father's friend bashed the wall and made these up.

 

[GeeBee]

I was in Germany when the wall came down, unfortunately I was stuck in Wolfsburg while working at VW, around 230Km from Berlin,so I only saw what was going on while watching the tv in the hotel, so never managed to get a bit of the wall.

[Foxer]

I was living in Germany 50 years before the wall came down and played a role in making it happen. I was in Neckarsulm in a Pershing Missile Battalion with nuclear missiles aimed in. These missiles were a major reason the Russians pulled back their missiles and opened the Wall. We were not allowed within 50km of the border.  I have to congratulate Revell for putting this out.

[Junkman]

50 years before the wall came down? That was 1939.

[Mike999]

21 hours ago, robertw said:

I rather like that 3D puzzle display base. I'd be interested in one if I hadn't made my own which incorporated an actural piece of the wall that I chipped out in the summer of 1990 when I was in East Berlin. Made my suitcase a little heavy for the rest of the trip but was a great souvenir of an important time in history.

I was also in Berlin during the summer of 1990, on vacation from Saudi Arabia.  One neat souvenir you could buy was a small chunk of the wall, with a 1/43 scale Trabant climbing up it.  My Mom has one on display in her house.

The amazing stuff for sale was all the former military gear. The East German Army and the Potsdam garrison of the Red Army both seemed to have giant clearance sales.  Street vendors were selling everything from complete General's uniforms to medals and everything else (except firearms).  I got a tanker's helmet and some other stuff.

 

 

 

[SfanGoch]

My unit, A/1/6 INF,  went to West Berlin twice for MOUT training in Doughboy City, in Nov 81 and in March 84. We had a reenlistment ceremony at Checkpoint Charlie for one of our guys. It was our CO's idea. He wanted to PO the East German border guards.It did.

[robertw]

Didn't see the 1/43 Trabants on the wall souvenirs  but there were still many of the real ones to photograph, which I did.  I remember being surprized how quickly Berlin youth became entrepreneurs by renting out hammers & chisels to those of us wanting a souvenir. My piece came from near Check Point Charlie. I also remember the street vendors selling Communist military memorabilia but I was at an early point in my trip so could only carry a small amount of extra stuff. For the rest of my life I will have deep memories of what I saw in East Germany and the effect it had on my beliefs and values.

[Brian Austin]

I can't prove it, but I seem to remember seeing a Trabant perched up on the front of a business in Charleston, SC in the early '90s.  I didn't get a picture.

[Bob Ellis]

When I was in Berlin in 2006 , they had a tour called Trabant Safari. They drive you all over Berlin and through Check Point Charlie.

https://www.getyourguide.com/-l17/-tc230/?cmp=ga&campaign_id=753575677&adgroup_id=48182320708&target_id=kwd-69625583733&loc_physical_ms=9001870&match_type=e&ad_id=192225244316&keyword=berlin trabant safari&ad_position=1t1&feed_item_id=&placement=&partner_id=CD951&gclid=CjwKCAjwxOvsBRAjEiwAuY7L8lnjEDzL_UqvbSoCIYopoOK3_rEkQ27pPVkbD0Hn-DzbggwW4S81wRoCidsQAvD_BwE

[GeeBee]

I've seen this on a YouTube video, you can either go off in a group or for a little more Euros you can go off on your own with a map, it's on my to-do list 

[unclescott58]

Just ordered the 30th Anniversary kit. I remember sitting in a Political Science class at the University of Minnesota, a year before the wall fell, and being told by the professor that we would never see a united Germany in our lifetime. It was a good lesson for me in many ways. Another professor I admired a lot, warned me not to put academics on too high of pedestals. They are not "gods" in their knowledge of the subject they are teaching. They just have a more educated opinions on the subjects they have studied more than the rest of us. Like I say, a good lesson that I needed to learn. 

[HomerS]

On 9/6/2019 at 8:56 AM, Mike999 said:

 

Wrong scale, but for the 30th anniversary, AFV Club has released a 1/35 scale kit with 3 sections of the Berlin Wall:

Thank you for posting this as I never knew this was made!!  This afternoon may be spent looking to acquire it.....

My father served seven and half years in the Air Force after high school (honorably discharged), including as a radio operator deployed to West Berlin, Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall.  However as his health declined due to dementia, he was denied moving into a local VA nursing home as that wasn't considered deployment to a hostile territory!!    (That lead to a moment like Bluto in the movie Animal House when he went off when his frat brother said it was "over!").

Sorry for the rant.....very sore subject with me

 

 

 

[Mike999]

23 minutes ago, HomerS said:

Thank you for posting this as I never knew this was made!!  This afternoon may be spent looking to acquire it...

You're welcome!  Sprue Brothers show it as "In Stock."  That's mostly an armor/aircraft store, so our members might not hang around there much. Also saw it at some other places, but SB seems to have the best price.

The kit does not come with any figures.  It does have decals for the artwork shown on the box.

Sorry to hear about your Dad, that's rough. 

https://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/afv35317.htm

Edited April 25, 2020 by Mike999
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[89AKurt]

On 9/11/2019 at 3:57 AM, Foxer said:

I was living in Germany 50 years before the wall came down and played a role in making it happen. I was in Neckarsulm in a Pershing Missile Battalion with nuclear missiles aimed in. These missiles were a major reason the Russians pulled back their missiles and opened the Wall. We were not allowed within 50km of the border.  I have to congratulate Revell for putting this out.

[...]

I built the Estes rocket, kit bashed the Flight Systems F-engine kit with it.  Last flight the parachute broke off the nose cone.  Anyway, this picture couldn't be taken today, thanks to fence and development.

Back to the OT, didn't know there was such a thing as this Berlin Wall special kit.

[Tom Geiger]

I lived in Germany from 1968-72 as a US Army brat. We went to Berlin and I remember being in awe of. Checkpoint Charlie and the escape museum. There was traffic through it, as East Germans did work in West Berlin and commuted daily. I remember watching the Trabbies sputtering through on their way back home.  A lot of my friends were able to go tour East Berlin but we couldn’t because of my father’s security clearance.

[High octane]

I was doing a car show a couple years ago and a Trabant was on display next to my ride. Don't think that I had ever seen one before and the owner was nice enough to show me the car and explain some of the history behind it. Not really "my cup of tea" however it is an interesting car to say the least.

[lordairgtar]

I have both early and later models of this car.

 

[64Comet404]

There is at least one place in Germany where you can rent a Trabant for touring. A friend of mine did this last year on his vacation, described it as an 'experience'. Hmmm...

[Mike999]

If you weather your Trabant model, be careful with the rust.  Most of the body wasn't metal.  "The Trabant had a steel unibody frame, with the roof, trunk lid, hood, fenders and doors made of Duroplast, a hard plastic made from recycled cotton waste from the Soviet Union and phenol resins from the East German dye industry." (Wikipedia). 

That led to a problem when the re-unified Germany started scrapping Trabbis (after discovering their 2-stroke engines put out more pollution than a big Mercedes).  The bodies couldn't be junked the usual way, because crushing and burning the Duroplast released toxins into the air.  They finally came up with a clever solution:  the Trabbi bodies were chopped into small pieces and spread on icy roads in winter.    

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, 64Comet404 said:

There is at least one place in Germany where you can rent a Trabant for touring. A friend of mine did this last year on his vacation, described it as an 'experience'. Hmmm...

If you get the Revell Trabant 60th anniversary kit, you get a set of decals to replicate one of the Trabant safari cars