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Trabant Lieferwagen


GeeBee

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Really nice build of one of automotive history’s literally crappiest cars ever. The real thing was literally made from cardboard. A Yugo was an engineering masterpiece compared to the Trabant, affectionately known as Trabie. 

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11 hours ago, mrm said:

Really nice build of one of automotive history’s literally crappiest cars ever. The real thing was literally made from cardboard. A Yugo was an engineering masterpiece compared to the Trabant, affectionately known as Trabie. 

The main structure was actually made of steel, the front wings, outer door skins, read quarter panel, roof panel, bootlid and bonnet was made of Duraplast, a mixture of cotton fibres and phenol resin.

This is the steel structure

 

Karosserie-3-1.gif

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I don’t know what your experience with Trabant is. I grew up with them all around me. Two family members had them. Technical names aside, their entire body was made from what can best be described as laminated cardboard. You could easily kick a hole in one of the body panels, especially the doors. As kids we used to make “guns” from the tubes of stolen tv antennas from the buildings roofs. We used to make “bullets” , by making long funnels from magazine paper, that fit in the tubes. When you blow in the tube, those “bullets” would fly amazing distances with quite the force. One day after playing, we were sitting next to a bush with some sort of red-beans-looking-fruit. Perfect caliber for our “guns”. We shot up a Trabie that was across the street. The red balls made nice splatter patterns across the cardboard colored body of the Trabant. The owner eventually found out who did it, so our parents made us spend a weekend trying to wash it. Mission impossible. The juice of whatever that plant was, had soaked into the finish and had stained it permanently. Our parents had to pay for the repaint, for which we all got a whooping. Those were the times. 
   Later in my teens, on our way from a nightclub (we had no age limit) we used to grab a Trabie and put it sideway across a street as a prank. Six teens (sometimes less) could lift and drag one across without a problem. Twice we got a pretty serious beatings from the militia (in communist regime Eastern Europe there was no Police - it was militia). They didn’t issue tickets or give fines. They lined you up face to the wall and take to you kidneys and limb joints with their rubber batons. You piss blood for a week or two after that and don’t sleep too well. LOL. Then you do the next dumb thing and hope not to get caught again. 
    Trabants had primitive two cylinder two-stroke engine. You had to pour oil in the gas tank. Most Trabants on my street were seldom moving from their spots as they were anything but reliable. People bought them simply because they could not afford anything else or because it was the only option available. 
   The model Revell made is something I am sure exists, but I have never seen one like it. An uncle had this body style, but with windows all around and rear seat. Never seen a wagon like that in person. Maybe that’s s why Revell made it, as it must be the rarest variation. 
   There was also a popular joke about Trabant: An American car collector ordered one and after receiving it, wrote back to the company - “I received the scale model. When is the car coming?” LOL. Trabies were the size of a queen bed, if that. 

Edited by mrm
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