Trabant motors into new age as AfriCar
From Roger Boyes in Berlin




THE Trabant — the smoke-spewing, bone-rattling,
communist-made glass-fibre car that has been
compared with a sardine can and a lawnmower — may
bring the automobile revolution to Africa´s shanty
towns and transform the developing world.
That, at any rate, is the blueprint to be
announced in Frankfurt today as entrepreneurs try
to resurrect the cult car of the Cold War.

The East German regime launched the Trabant in
1957 simultaneously with the launch into space of
the Soviet Sputnik. Both events were supposed to
signal the arrival of modern socialism.

By 1989 many East Germans found themselves driving
through the rubble of the Berlin Wall in their
Trabants which had barely changed in the preceding
30 years; the car, maximum speed 100 kmh (60mph),
had become a metaphor for a defunct system.

Now engineers are rediscovering the merits of the
car with its two-stroke engine and its bodywork
made of a unique blend of phenol and compressed
cotton known as Duroplast.

Developers from Sachsenring, the insolvent car
factory, are promoting the AfriCar, a lightly
adapted Trabant that could ferry farm goods,
building materials or a family of four. The
AfriCar would be aimed initially at South Africa
and sell for about €3,000 (£2,100), making it by
far the cheapest car on the African market.

The Trabant´s merits stem from its painful
communist history. Since many customers had to
wait for up to 14 years for delivery, and spare
parts were scarce, every driver had to reckon on
doing his own repairs.

It was the simplest of cars: there were no disc
brakes, no radiator, no oil filter or oil pump, no
fuel gauge and the flow of petrol was powered by
gravity — the tank was above the engine — so there
was no fuel pump. Shrewd drivers carried not only
spare tyres but also spare engines. It was noisy
and dirty, yet, because of the small number of
moveable parts, it was almost unbreakable and
cheap to run.

The developers, presenting their plans to the
Economic Forum, are trying to drum up investment
money to complete a feasibility study by early
next year. It is already being promoted as an
African version of Henry Ford´s Model T, which
brough motoring to the American masses. If the
idea is accepted, it could change the mobility
patterns of a continent. It would also save the
Trabant factory, or at least the know-how
associated with the car.

The scheme is stirring fascination in Germany
because it has reminded people that not everything
invented under communist rule was doomed to
self-destruct.

This feeling goes beyond the 80 nostalgic Trabant
motoring clubs across Germany, where dedicated
car-owners try to recover parts of their lives
lost when East Germany collapsed.

The new respect for the Trabant derives from its
simplicity. Simple products made in a climate of
shortages sometimes prove the best solution in
countries with difficult geographical conditions.

«This is not really about bringing the Trabant
back from the dead,« Roman Winkler, the director
of development, said. «It´s about a logical
preference for low tech over high tech.«

Gerhard Franz, the head of an online company
selling East German products, says that business
is booming. «Over a third of our clients are
born-and-bred Westerners,« he said, dismissing the
idea that he is profiting from East German
nostalgia.

Trabants can still be seen across Germany and
Eastern Europe. Many have been converted into
open-top sports cars or vans. They are seen as a
gimmick but also as a practical city car, easily
parked and low on fuel consumption. They are
regarded as a lifestyle statement by people who
want to show that they are not in a hurry.

The logbook

The first Trabant, the F8 saloon, was built by the
state-owned East German car company IFA in 1949,
although under the IFA name. The first car under
the Trabant name, the P50, appeared in 1957. The
Trabant 600 saloon, right, had a 23bhp engine with
a top speed of 60mph. The P601, introduced in
1964, was made for 30 years.