Over the Edge: Trabant
The name Trabant was first used in 1957 with the Sachsenring Trabant P50 built at the former Union automobile factory in Zwickau, East Germany in 1964, the first P601 was built.
The Trabant is not the first cars built in Zwickau, but August Horch built the first car here in 1904 under the nameplate Horch Later he founded Audi here Audi and Horch merged later with DKW and Wanderer to form the infamous Auto Union 1930.
After World War II, Zwickau was in the Soviet sector became part of East Germany IFA, the automotive office government took over the factory Audi Sachsenring.
The factory built several cars before Sachsenring Trabant from 1955 to 1959, they built the S240 sedan.
P50 The Trabant was the first car to use the name Trabant and be constructed Duroplast, a form of fiberglass P50 was built from 1957 to 1964 and used a 500cc engine that was very similar to that of P601.
Various Trabant P50S collection Audi Horch Museum a Zwikau, Germany.
Then come the P601 with the 600cc engine is more This is the car we know today simply as the Trabant.
Despite the fact that the P601 has remained almost unchanged for almost 30 years, the Sachsenring factory remained busy building prototypes from 1963 to 1968 eight prototypes for P603 were built Unfortunately, none of these prototypes are from 1968 to 1979 twenty prototypes were built with the name P610 Several of these prototypes still exist and is in the Horch museum in Zwickau August
It is even said that one of these models was sold to Volkswagen and has been the basis of the original VW Golf the Rabbit in the United States.
In the last year of production, Sachsenring built Trabant 1 1, a model water-cooled VW Polo motor 1 1 liter Unfortunately, it was too little, too late for the Trabant aging and 1 1 proved to be the available final model .
Various Trabant Models 1 1 Note the different grill for the radiator, not found on previous models, air cooled.
Sachsenring has also sold a model based on a military model earlier called the tramp The tramp was a model similar to an old Jeep soft top, but without four wheel drive.
So what today Sachsenring Sachsenring has a new modern factory Zwickau which manufactures parts for Volkswagen's original factory still exists and is used as a warehouse and manufacturing for many small businesses.
The new Audi museum recently opened the door next to the factory and original houses a large number of cars in these images.
Trabant History, Trabant.