
The Trabant Is the Best Commie Car Made of Cotton We've Ever Driven - smacktoward
http://jalopnik.com/the-trabant-is-the-best-commie-car-made-of-cotton-weve-1788844883
======
JorgeGT
> New Trabants had an up to 10 year waiting list, so people tended to hold on
> to their cars forever

There was a soviet joke about this. A man goes to the car dealer, and asks for
an appointment to buy a car. The salesman replies sure, come in 10 years.
"Right, but in the morning or the afternoon?" inquires the man. "Is it really
important, in 10 years time?" asks the surprised salesman. "Well, you see, the
plumber already gave me an appointment for the morning".

~~~
Pica_soO
There is another one. A Guy from the west orders a trabant, and because he is
ordering from the west, he gets to cut the waiting line and immediately
revives it. Some friends visit him- asking him how he is satisfied with his
car. "Oh, its going to be great- they already send me a paper-model."

------
jlg23
Most important: It could be fixed by any semi-capable amateur with a stone,
garter and some swearing.

Because it was so lightweight, my father could once bring a replacement door
in public transport without breaking a sweat. And because it was so simple, he
could put it in in half an hour without any prior training as a car mechanic.

If not for the antiquated 2-stroke engine and lack of exhaust filters, it
could still be an example for very good, cost efficient and environment
friendly engineering.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Apart from being a deathtrap and making you deaf.

Dial back your econonsense, please. I was made like it was because East
Germany was broke as hell and could not produce much of anything...

~~~
jlg23
I'm not sure whether the eco in econonsense refers to economy or ecology but
in both possible meanings I would like to hear your math behind the
"nonsense".

* gravity costs less than a fuel pump and it rarely breaks so does not need replacement

* recycled material usually costs less than new material, esp. when you consider garbage disposal costs

* less moving parts and parts than can be repaired by amateurs mean less parts overall which means less costs and waste

I don't doubt that they would fail modern crash tests but even that is
relative: If everyone is driving a slow "deathtrap" your chances of getting
into a high speed crash with a fast moving tank are pretty low.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Your chances of being maimed in that cardboard box even in a minor city crash
are high, it literally is a deathtrap.

You literally seem to have no idea how any of this works

Those cars are constantly broken. They leak everything everywhere.
Serviceability by amateurs goes directly against low emissions. You can't make
a clean, 4-stroke engine without high fuel pressure. Modern engines require
unimaginable tolerances.

Recycled material is almost always more expensive than non-recycled one, why
do you think recycling needs to be forced by law? Eastern Germany had
shortages of materials so they literally used anything they could. Do you
really think it was inert and harmless? For e.g. soviet bloc used heavily
carcinogenic cleaning agent in preschools, hospitals etc.

Sure, you can drop bells and whistles like electric windshields, infotaiment
and the like.

~~~
jlg23
I'm not sure whether you are trolling so this is my last attempt at having a
meaningful conversation with you:

> Your chances of being maimed in that cardboard box even in a minor city
> crash are high, it literally is a deathtrap.

I would still argue, when on a bicycle, your survival chances when crashing
into a bicycle are higher than when crashing into a car. Same goes for Trabant
vs Trabant. Do you have some concrete evidence that Trabant does worse here
(i.e. design issues that prevented people from getting out or that turn some
parts into lethal weapons when involved in a "minor city crash")?

> Those cars are constantly broken. They leak everything everywhere.

At least not my family's Trabant or those of our friends. Do you have any
actual numbers on failure rates?

> Serviceability by amateurs goes directly against low emissions. You can't
> make a clean, 4-stroke engine without high fuel pressure. Modern engines
> require unimaginable tolerances.

That is a very bold statement only backed by a comparison that does not even
apply (a modern 4-stroke engine design vs the used 2-stroke engine). But since
2-stroke engines benefit greatly from direct injection I'll let that pass and
just notice that I was not talking about the engine specifically but the
overall design and that I even pointed out that the engine they used was
"antiquated".

> Recycled material is almost always more expensive than non-recycled one

Do you have any numbers to back that up? And here I'd like to have a breakdown
to see where the costs are coming from. In a planned economy it is much easier
and cheaper to source recycled or scrapped material (i.e: You know you need
10ton of cotton wool to make X goods in a factory and you also know that you
have to scrap 0.5tons. Therefore you just plan on having 0.5tons for further
use and collect that with a truck once a month.)

> Eastern Germany had shortages of materials so they literally used anything
> they could. Do you really think it was inert and harmless? For e.g. soviet
> bloc used heavily carcinogenic cleaning agent in preschools, hospitals etc.

You won. I'm completely traumatized by ~"carcinogens in preschools and
hospitals". Well, maybe not, because that was not the topic at all (but I can
give you many more great examples of what was utterly wrong if you need them
for further "arguments" \- after all, I grew up there). I don't care _why_ we
use resources as efficient as possible as long as we do it. Now people carry
proper fabric shopping bags "because of the environment1!!!1!". Before there
was this joke in Western Germany: "How do you spot someone from Eastern
Germany? He is carrying a fabric shopping bag!".

> why do you think recycling needs to be forced by law?

Because the elected representatives think that the majority wants to protect
the environment. Or in other words: Because we have arrived at a point where
people think it is important to use resources as efficiently as possible. I
don't see the importance of _why_ people want to save resources as long as
they do it.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Wait, so now I have to write a research paper on 5 topics?

You said "it is ecological at heart concept"

1)can't be ecological with 2 stroke engine, EVER

You said "it is great to be serviceable by amateurs"

2) From 1) follows lack of "fixable with whatever".

You need high fuel pressure for good atomization and efficient burn, you need
precise tolerances, you need high-grade materials for the engine to not burn
fuel like crazy and not produce all kinds of nasty shit. One could go on for
hours

Wikipedia claims: The engine produced very smoky exhaust and significant air
pollution – nine times the hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxide
emissions of the average European car of 2007.

Great ecology.

Another point of gravity fuel feed: guess where the tank is - directly above
an aircooled engine. Top marks for safety

On the topic of safety: Yes, being hit by a modern car might actually be safer
on a bike than in that thing. Sure as fuck I'd personally prefer that if it
was compared to motorbike + clothes.

You might burn. The steering column might impale you. The steering wheel might
take your head off. That thing literally folds on itself. It isn't speed that
kills you but being crushed into a funny looking ball

The carcirogenic part was just highlight one problem. They used waste from dye
production. Do you think anyone even bothered to check how toxic it is? Do you
really think that waste from a soviet plant is harmless? They used it because
they had no other materials available.

That sweet eco-touchy-feely recycled duroplast? Turns out you can't really
dispose of it. (They ground it up and mixed it as aggregate in cement for
pavement construction)

About recycling: I meant it has to be required because it usually isn't worth
it (especially for normal people, not buisnesses that happen to have it by the
tonne)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/low-oil-prices-hurt-
plastics-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/low-oil-prices-hurt-plastics-
recycling-2016-4?IR=T)

Sure, I can use fabric shopping bags. Just to buy trash bags instead, but
whatever makes you feel nice. Most of the time the supermarkets make me use a
gazyllion shitty plastic bags for every single loose thing (self-weighting)
anyway.

------
guard-of-terra
The problem with those socialist countries is that they failed to evolve.
They'll still be making the same car in '85 which was succesfully launched in
'65, and nobody would want it any more.

This is perhaps because of lack of competition (there wasn't much common
market even between different Warsaw Pact countries) and overspending on
military preparing for wars which never came.

[http://jalopnik.com/these-were-your-car-options-in-
hungary-u...](http://jalopnik.com/these-were-your-car-options-in-hungary-
under-the-soviet-1545678388) this article makes the point that there was some
competition. Lucky for Hungary. In USSR there were not.

~~~
maxxxxx
That's a good point. Eastern Germany wasn't doing that bad in the 50s but
somehow they got stuck. Even North Korea was doing well for a while.

~~~
yongjik
North Korea was doing _better_ than South until 60s, and not too bad even
until late 80s. (They even sent aid packages to South Korea once in the 80s,
when we were hit by a big typhoon. Largely as a propaganda show, but still.)

It then fell off a cliff.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I guess there were no longer any USSR to supply them with fertilizer and other
stuff for free, and China retracted some of their support too. And they relied
on centralized mechanized agriculture. Which in this closed off society led to
a large scale famine.

------
wtbob
I wish they hadn't broken their images — they require JavaScript for
functioning <img> tags(!).

------
TwoNineA
The hungarian joke was: 'When I grow up, I'll be a Mercedes'.

------
frik
This is the material used for the outside body work, a kind of plastic also
used for billiard/pool balls:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin)
and
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenoplast#Verwendung](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenoplast#Verwendung)

------
Dylan16807
A beautiful game about this car:
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/446020/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/446020/)

------
chiph
The USAF has one in their Museum in Dayton Ohio placed in front of several
panels of the Berlin Wall. Here's a pic I took years ago:

[http://imgur.com/a/NJ4Hu](http://imgur.com/a/NJ4Hu)

------
amai
When visiting East Germany I always preferred the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_353](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_353)
over the Trabant.

------
yardie
The Trabant is the ultra hipster statement. It's so bad it's good.

------
MichaelMoser123
the Trabi stinks terribly, lots of exhaust because of the two takt engine,
good luck with passing a vehicle inspection with that one. Never mind the
shift gear and lack of power steering. However its fans love it because you
can tinker with it...

Also the funny part is that the late east german politbureau was driving Volvo
cars, eastern block cars weren't good enough for them...

------
gumby
They failed to mention my favorite side point: people in East Germany LOVED
stickers (Aufkleber). I have no idea why, but Trabis were covered in stickers.
We used to joke that they were to keep the Trabis from falling apart.

------
combatentropy
This Youtube channel, Aging Wheels, showcases the Trabant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpIgM6TpwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpIgM6TpwA)

------
busterarm
Reminds me of a great commercial...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yiOPgUs1lA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yiOPgUs1lA)

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Sorry, those are in german language:

This is an east german car magazine episode from 1982, introducing the new
model's features:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynxQF3pd-I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynxQF3pd-I)

Spoof by a german comedian:
[http://funpot.net/?id=d2c15d587110bcfa](http://funpot.net/?id=d2c15d587110bcfa)

------
vanous
The license plate "OT 92-27" on the picture should be license plate of the of
Ostrava district, if i am not mistaken :)

Btw. there was no heating in Trabant...

------
perlpimp
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No1-4GsQa-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No1-4GsQa-g)

