• The Roadster Factory Recovery Fund - Friends, as you may have heard, The Roadster Factory, a respected British Car Parts business in PA, suffered a total loss in a fire on Christmas Day. Read about it, discuss or ask questions >> HERE. The Triumph Register of America is sponsoring a fund raiser to help TRF get back on their feet. If you can help, vist >> their GoFundMe page.
  • Hey there Guest!
    If you enjoy BCF and find our forum a useful resource, if you appreciate not having ads pop up all over the place and you want to ensure we can stay online - Please consider supporting with an "optional" low-cost annual subscription.
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this UGLY banner)
Tips
Tips

Availabile with different trim options

Gliderman8

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
After seeing that video I need to give my Lambretta a hug
 

AngliaGT

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
Looks like it's more fun than a Yugo.
Someone needs to post the video of the
Trabant factory.
 
OP
Basil

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
Speaking of weird little vehicles you don't see often, I've seen this 1967 Toyota "Publica" pickup in a couple of local shows. If I remember him saying it was mainly for the Japanese market and there were not many in US.

Fathers Day 2018-9.jpg
 

TR3driver

Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
Offline
Seems like lots of minor inaccuracies; starting with the fact the Trabi was not the only East German car.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_(marque)

East Germany was never actually Communist, not even really Socialist. Closer to a dictatorship.

Not sure what's with the "can't lift in any gear but 4", no one mentioned that when I was there.

And he missed a few things; like it did have a crude fuel gauge : When you got low on fuel, the engine quit until you twisted the fuel knob on the dash. Very similar to the original Volkswagen (and my Ferguson tractor with the Standard engine). Just don't forget to twist it back after filling up!

As well as my favorite feature : the body was not made of steel, not even metal! It was actually closer to Masonite, basically ground up cotton waste compressed with a phenol resin into molds. After the wall fell, the unified German government quickly decided the binder was toxic and the car was literally declared toxic waste. It cost more to dispose of than the car was worth in running condition! As a result, there were hundreds of them simply abandoned on the side of the road (I presume after having the numbers removed).

I've driven "4 on the tree" (on a Peugeot, not a Trabi), it's not so bad. You don't "look" at the lever to tell what gear you're in, you have to feel your way.

Another fun fact : New Trabis were incredibly cheap, but the supply was so limited that you could wait 10 years or more to get one. As a result, used Trabis routinely sold for more than new! And since the East German mark was so nearly worthless, there was a brisk underground economy in Trabi parts.

All in all, a fitting vehicle for a country that put up a minefield and armed guards just to keep its citizens from leaving! I got one of the gun slits (guard tower window) from the Berlin wall (technically a few days before the wall officially came down), but unfortunately it got thrown away before I could get home with it. One of the Indians apparently threw it overboard, thinking it was trash.

If you're ever in Berlin, be sure to see the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It's just amazing, the things people tried to get out of East Germany.
 
OP
Basil

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
Seems like lots of minor inaccuracies; starting with the fact the Trabi was not the only East German car.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_(marque)

East Germany was never actually Communist, not even really Socialist. Closer to a dictatorship.

Not sure what's with the "can't lift in any gear but 4", no one mentioned that when I was there.

And he missed a few things; like it did have a crude fuel gauge : When you got low on fuel, the engine quit until you twisted the fuel knob on the dash. Very similar to the original Volkswagen (and my Ferguson tractor with the Standard engine). Just don't forget to twist it back after filling up!

As well as my favorite feature : the body was not made of steel, not even metal! It was actually closer to Masonite, basically ground up cotton waste compressed with a phenol resin into molds. After the wall fell, the unified German government quickly decided the binder was toxic and the car was literally declared toxic waste. It cost more to dispose of than the car was worth in running condition! As a result, there were hundreds of them simply abandoned on the side of the road (I presume after having the numbers removed).

I've driven "4 on the tree" (on a Peugeot, not a Trabi), it's not so bad. You don't "look" at the lever to tell what gear you're in, you have to feel your way.

Another fun fact : New Trabis were incredibly cheap, but the supply was so limited that you could wait 10 years or more to get one. As a result, used Trabis routinely sold for more than new! And since the East German mark was so nearly worthless, there was a brisk underground economy in Trabi parts.

All in all, a fitting vehicle for a country that put up a minefield and armed guards just to keep its citizens from leaving! I got one of the gun slits (guard tower window) from the Berlin wall (technically a few days before the wall officially came down), but unfortunately it got thrown away before I could get home with it. One of the Indians apparently threw it overboard, thinking it was trash.

If you're ever in Berlin, be sure to see the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It's just amazing, the things people tried to get out of East Germany.

Yeah well, I don't want too get into a debate about East Germany, which for most of my Air Force career was a satellite state of the Communist Soviet Union with a centrally controlled economy and occupied by Soviet forces. Nevertheless, I found it a fun review from a guy who usually reviews high-end Ferrari, Lambos and other classic and exotic cars. This was way out of his normal lane.
 

DrEntropy

Great Pumpkin
Platinum
Country flag
Offline
"How do you double the value of a Traubi?"

Fill the gastank!
 
D

Deleted member 8987

Guest
Guest
Offline
"How do you double the value of a Traubi?"

Fill the gastank!

Same thing for a Lada and a Yugo.
Scrap yards would pay you for the gas in the tank when you dropped one off, right?

You and I, went through all the Cold War BS.....and the Russkies can't keep airliners in the sky....nor Submarines from burning, blowing up, or sinking. Vehicles? Gimme a break, and NOT my arm or leg, please.
I have two versions of up-close-and-personal with Soviet era military vessels. AGI's (Trawlers), and Foxtrot submarines.

We were taught to worry about Soviet Submarines.

Not.

When you get Soviet Propaganda telling the world Foxtrots had a "normal" operating depth of 900+ feet...and you work on one...they cut the hull for a stairwell for access....and the freaking hull is 5/8" thick......no. Our "shallow" WWII diseasemal boats had 5/8" hulls, frames INSIDE the hull, and less than 300' operating depth....and the Foxtrots had the frames on the outside.....and I KNOW the capabilities of their sonar....ever hear of a "Crazy Ivan"? Reason (primary) was lack of capabilities in their sonar.....six cylinder Kolomna diseasemal engines...direct drive....to a six bladed prop (three and three, actually) and the sound signature was...distinctive.

Trabants do not surprise me.

Pressed cotton waste bodies....like the battery compartments (berthing) on Foxtrots....everything above the batteries was wood.

Imagine the fire danger.

No wonder they had two fire suppression stations, one in Forward Torpedo, one in Maneuvering, consisting of two tanks each (about the size of a barbecue propane tank) of....FREON. Valve for each compartment (and sometimes the shipyard workers were not stellar in attention to detail on labeling said valves), spray nozzles in the overhead.....and anybody in the compartment when you engaged the system...dies.

Again, Trabants do not surprise me.
 
Country flag
Offline
There used to be a joke in Soviet Russia, "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.

But goes to show how direction from the top doesn't work. In the 1940s Stalin directed Tupolev to build him copies of the B-29 using several interned bombers as patterns. The manufacturer was afraid to ask for details of what copies meant so the eventual TU-4 copy contained all the patches and fixes for damage they had received over Japan during the war. Thus they could say to Stalin that he had his copies. Of course it wasn't mentioned that the engines weren't really copies as the Soviet engineers couldn't get reliable versions so they used a Russian designed engine of the same size.
 

DrEntropy

Great Pumpkin
Platinum
Country flag
Offline
I've oft wondered how many Russian subs are REALLY tango uniform on the bottom.
 
OP
Basil

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
I don't think it would be possible to design a more bland, classless, unappealing car if you tried.
 
D

Deleted member 8987

Guest
Guest
Offline
I've oft wondered how many Russian subs are REALLY tango uniform on the bottom.

A lot. Not even counting their predilection to take discarded boats out and just sink them.
Add to that the info gleaned from fellow crewmen who were there when impacts occurred....and the "sound of the boat breaking up" as it went down reported by Sonar.
Near Bangor Washington is a undersea warfare museum. Out front is the sail for USS Sturgeon, SS(N) 637, lead boat of the class...except Whale commissioned before Sturgeon.

That is NOT the original sail for Sturgeon. I was in Groton when they dragged it in.
Ran into a guy several years later who was on board when it happened.
Crazy Ivans can do that to you.
Dace, same thing...and there are others.

Since I was not aboard and did not sign non-disclosures........I can sort of talk about it.
Was it the K-19? Which one did Glomar Explorer try to raise?

We lost two nuke boats...one ended up with the torpedo battery manufacturer never doing that again...the other, that shipyard never built another..and SubSafe came about because of Thresher.
 

DrEntropy

Great Pumpkin
Platinum
Country flag
Offline
I always kept in mind where product was going while working as an NDT inspector with Babcock & Wilcox. Always triple intent when the customer was in Groton CT. Guessing the Russions lacked any such scrutiny of the materials going into their boats.
 
D

Deleted member 8987

Guest
Guest
Offline
I could tell you stories. Stainless Steel is your friend on sea going vessels...really smart on ones that submerge....and all the stainless on my Foxtrot...rusted.
They had no crossconnects on the hydraulics. I REALLY saw that when I worked on the Juliette in Rhode Island.
One system goes down, you cannot crossconnect to another to continue the mission.
TWO freaking toilets inside the hull. Mark of a good Soviet Submariner was to hold his poo.
Surface the boat, in the aft end of the sail was a carpper (sp) that dumped through a slot in the bottom of the sail down over the side of the hull.
Showers? One, and one small still for battery water and cooking only. You got one 30-second fresh water shower a week. In the aforementioned sail was a shower...they lit off the firefighting pump and you had all the 34 degree north Atlantic salt water showers you could handle.
Mess decks? NONE. You got you food at the galley that was smaller than any bathroom I have ever seen, went and found a place to eat.
I was used to US boats, as were my fellow workers on the Foxtrot. Never seen that many valves and valve handles. Instead of flipping a switch, with an electro-mechanical operation at the other end.....

We could not figure out what they were thinking. The designs made no sense.

One night I went down to the boat, sat on one of the (empty) diesels, and thought. And thought.
What was the Russkie engineer thinking when he designed this POS?

And I started figuring it out. Counter to what we did by a bunch.

I held School of the Boat sessions to enlighten my fellow crewmembers.

I should tell you about Countermeasures. Flare storage. Torpedo tubes.


On the B-29/TU-4, they used those things to great advantage during the Korean conflict, to the point that any unidentified B-29 following your formation was to be shot down.
Landing gear, I don't know if they ever figured out our use of Titanium. Why every Russkie Air Museum has pylons beside the gear to hold them up. Or so I've been told.
 

LarryK

Yoda
Gold
Country flag
Offline
Mr. Bean had a Trabant for work, races a Jag MKVII for fun.
 

LarryK

Yoda
Gold
Country flag
Offline
Light green Trabant was the clown car, I believe the mini was red, but I remember evrytime I saw him in action was the green Trabant. Might be wrong.
 

LarryK

Yoda
Gold
Country flag
Offline
Basil, I stand corrected. Always drove mini in green with black bonnet.
 

Popeye

Darth Vader
Silver
Country flag
Offline
Thanks for the video. I have not yet seen it, and look forward to doing so!

As the son of an east German escapee, and having visited many times in the 70s and 80s, I can say the Trabi was not all that bad. It was a 1960 car and technology, never updated throughout its 30 years of production - the result of a system where engineers โ€œpretended to be paid - and pretended to workโ€! :smile: Given the hardships of post-war Europe, in 1960 it was decently advanced... independent suspension, unibody, and a body that did not rust. Duroplast is the subject of many jokes, but other than disposal issues, it ainโ€™t that bad. (A 1960s car that did not rust? A Corvette, of course, but is a much different and better car at a higher price point.)

One uncle, the car nut, had a Lada; a much better car. And a Berliner scooter, quite a beautiful design!

Living in East Germany on the other hand... I will never forget the joy brought by giving my relatives bananas and blue jeans. Two commodity items not available. I will never forget the fear of my 8 year old cousin when I repeated โ€œReaganโ€ in a public playground - she joked that our new president was a โ€œstormโ€; in German โ€œRegenโ€ means โ€œrainโ€ - thus the silly joke. Being a little slow on the uptake, when I finally got it, i repeated โ€œReagan, ha ha, Reagan,...!โ€. To which she said โ€œsh! People might hear you!โ€ But I have fond memories of visiting my grandmother, and the huge family gathered around her table. The best breakfast rolls I have ever had come from the little bakery down the street from her apartment. Simple hard yeast rolls, and really good. I can still taste them now - some 30 years after the wall fell.
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Offline
Always good to consider the difficulties surmounted when anything is designed and built. As Mike says, given the hardships of post-war Europe - plus the lack of the Marshall Plan - the German Democratic Republic struggled along. Interesting film: "Goodbye, Lenin".

The car was interesting, but what I actually laughed at was the guy doing the "evaluation". Acted more like a 15 year old trying to be funny in front of his junior high buddies.

(Come to think of it, when I visited east Berlin in 1967, I remember the best bread and rolls I ever ate were at a small bakery near (I think) the Neues Museum, where we saw the bust of Nefertiti).

Tom M.
 
Top