Trabant 601 Ls

Cult object for young people, deadly serious business for the older generation. The Trabant is the peoples car of postwar communist East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR).

Cult object for young people, deadly serious business for the older generation. The Trabant is the peoples car of postwar communist East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). Production starts in 1958 in Zwickau, in the former Auto Union factory that was nationalized after the Second World War. The name had been chosen a year earlier through a competition; on the one hand Trabant means buddy, companion, on the other the word Erdtrabant (satellite) refers to Sputnik, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. Although the car gets the pet name Trabi, for East Germans it is more a necessary means of transport, since Western cars are not allowed to be imported. The Trabant is a very basic car with a two cylinder two stroke engine, originally a prewar DKW design. The first Trabants have an output of only 15 hp. The bodywork, however, is made of Duroplast, a type of plastic. Thanks to its low weight, this later model with 26 hp still manages a top speed of 105 km/h. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Trabant gains cult status.