Trabant 601 — 26 Jahre lang durfte ihn niemand ersetzen

The Trabant 601 was the only car produced in East Germany for 26 years – and in Zwickau, its successors were already ready and waiting. In the same city where August Horch built his eight-cylinder engines and where Audi was founded, engineers designed better cars for three decades. Every single one was canceled, and by the top. When the four-stroke engine finally arrived under VW license in 1990, the country for which it had been built had almost completely disappeared. On April 30, 1991, the last Trabant rolled off the assembly line in Zwickau – after 87 years of automobile production. —————————————————————————— Topics of this episode • From Horch and Audi to the plastic car: 87 years of automotive manufacturing in Zwickau • Why the body was made of Duroplast – and why that wasn't an invention, but a stopgap solution • The discontinued successors: the P603, the joint project with Czechoslovakia, and the prototypes of the 1980s • The Trabant 1.1, the currency union, and the end in April 1991 —————————————————————————— On this channel, I tell stories of cars, brands, and factories that no longer exist. If you're interested, subscribe to the channel – next up is Horch and the man who ultimately lost his own name. ``` —————————————————————————— #Trabant601 #Trabant #GDR #Zwickau #CarHistory #Ostalgia #Sachsenring #GDRHistory