Great (???) Commercials--Trabant 601
Our subject for today is a thirty-second commercial for the Trabant 601 which appeared on East German television around 1969.
From bumper to bumper, the Trabant was an example of German engineering gone horribly, horribly wrong. The two-stroke two-cylinder engine produced more smoke than horsepower. The outer body panels were made from recycled industrial waste and had the sturdy feel of a cheap toilet seat. Due to the production inefficiencies inherent in a centrally planned economy, there were never enough Trabants to go around. It cost the equivalent of an average worker's yearly earnings, and the waiting list could be as long as twelve years. (Used Trabis actually sold at a premium because they were immediately available.)
Given all that, why did the East German state feel compelled to advertise the Trabi? It's not like there was any consumer choice in East Germany. For all but a select few in the Communist Party elite, if they could get a car at all, it was a Trabi or nothing. There were no competing brands offered for sale, and the government wasn't going to give its citizens permission to go across the border and visit the Opel or Audi dealer--they had enough trouble keeping them from defecting as it was.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect this was not so much advertising as it was propaganda. East Germans who lived close to the inter-German border or Berlin could pick up West German TV, and radio broadcasts from the West could be heard all over the country despite the government's occasional attempts at jamming. East Germans undoubtedly saw and heard West German advertisements for West German cars. This ad is most likely an attempt to convince the East German populace that the Trabants their country produced were just as good as the cars those decadent capitalists across the border had. Or, at least, an attempt by the crew that produced it to convince their superiors in the Propaganda Ministry that it would convince East Germans of the quality of the Trabant!
With that in mind, let's proceed to the deconstruction:
0:02 -- Why are these guys wearing dorky white jumpsuits and cheap motor scooter helmets? Is this what the up-to-date groovy with-it New Socialist Man wore to swank cocktail parties in 1969?
0:10 -- The Trabi's trunk is pretty spacious for a car this size. There is a display in the International Spy Museum's main exhibit showing how you could smuggle four or five defectors past a checkpoint in a Trabi. If memory serves correctly, two of them fit in the trunk under a false front suitcase.
0:12 -- Seeing the Trabi stumbling on the ragged edge of control through a high medium low-speed slalom doesn't so much convince you of its maneuverability as it does make you feel sorry for the poor thing.
0:16 -- "Schnell!" Well, maybe downhill with a tail wind. The Trabi does the 0-100 KPH dash (the metric equivalent of 0-60) in 50 seconds. There are decadent capitalist golf carts that can out-accelerate it.
0:19 -- It has off-road capability. Sort of. In a sense.
0:22 -- The music used in this commercial was issued by the Communist Party to roller rinks throughout the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. All skate, comrades!
And so, as the sun slowly sets on the former German Democratic Republic, we say goodbye to the hapless, inadequate, poorly-designed, yet somehow endearing, Trabant 601. The photo of the fixer-upper came from Flickr user George '50; the one in early-60s pastel mod turquoise is by Flickr user temp13rec.
--Inhaber des Hundes genannt Cookie
Steaming Pile on December 15, 2008 at 12:10 PM
I had no idea a Trabi could even do 100 KPH. Surely it could sustain it about as long as the original Starship Enterprise could sustain Warp 8.5 before Scotty started telling Cap'n Kirk she won't take it much longer.
Mochi Mochi on December 15, 2008 at 12:58 PM
i find this ad strangely compelling. the oversteer in the low speed slalom was one of the things that caught my eye and said "buy me". imagine the fun one could have in a parking lot autocross course with a car that has such low limits of adhesion. this is a car that dares you to try to go fast and i imagine can simulate a feeling of tremendous speed and accomplishment for all those who would approach at turn at some modest velocity like 45 or 50 mph. The scooter helmets tell the whole story - you get in this thing and you feel like you need protection - you feel like a race driver even though you are not exceeding the speed limit in a school zone. it's kind of ugly cute too.
David Colborne on December 15, 2008 at 01:21 PM
If I want to fly around in an antiquated vehicle with no traction, I'd fix the clutch in my '63 C-10 and go slaloming. I mean, sure, it would probably handle better than a Trabant, but would a Trabant provide that nerve-wracking, fear-inducing, underwear-staining feeling that you can only get from over two tons of capitalism-loving American steel flying in some uncontrollable direction? I think not.
Chris Hafner on December 15, 2008 at 01:40 PM
Mochi Mochi: "imagine the fun one could have in a parking lot autocross course with a car that has such low limits of adhesion. this is a car that dares you to try to go fast and i imagine can simulate a feeling of tremendous speed and accomplishment for all those who would approach at turn at some modest velocity like 45 or 50 mph."
Well, this would seem to be the ultimate expression of driving a slow car fast ...
A few notes:
- I love it when Cookie TDO lapses into communist speak. Well done, comrade!
- I'm liking the looks of that faded green Fiat/Yugo sedan (?) sitting next to the Trabant in the second photo!
- The slalom video was certainly enlightning. Most slalom video is a bit pointless - yes, the car can navigate through cones. In this case, you get a visceral feel for what driving the car must be like. The thing looks wildly unstable and incredibly twitchy. I wonder what Ralph Nader would think of it?
SwedishMetal on December 15, 2008 at 02:05 PM
mochi, you crack me up:
"the oversteer in the low speed slalom was one of the things that caught my eye and said 'buy me'."
what a horrible, horrible, horrible "car" the trabant is. i'm pretty sure someone would GIVE you one. or you could take the many that are rotting in the former DDR. last weeks Top Gear did a feature on commie cars, such as the Lada Riva, which would be a good Car Disgust for a UK contributor :)
Jim Bob on December 15, 2008 at 05:31 PM
The Trabant is one of my all time automotive lusts! It's so bad that it's good...real good... I want one so bad that it hurts, but have no idea how to get what is a very inexpensive to buy car in the former East Germany to America, then register and drive it. Make mine a P601 in baby blue or green, please. I would probably keep it looking stock on the outside, but modernize it underneath so that I could buy parts. Maybe get a mid 90's Civic to donate it's mechanical pieces, and mix one of the world's worst handling front drive subcompacts with the best.
I'd also love a Lada 2101, a Zaporozhetz 968 or a real mini for use as my daily driver. (Not stock, but it would be cool just to have one.)
Jim Bob on December 15, 2008 at 05:35 PM
Oh, and you could get a different car in East Germany: The Wartburg. It's even less charming than the Trabi, but it cost more. It had a full 3 cylinders of air-cooled bliss under the hood, instead of the Trabi's 2. Wartburg's were the luxury models of the DDR.
Also, Tabant P601's were available in 2 trim levels and 3 different body styles. A 2 door sedan, a 2 door limo, and a convertible that initially was supposed to be a military version ( like a Mini Moke).
Shawn on December 15, 2008 at 06:19 PM
I can picture this commercial airing during Worker & Parasite cartoons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-nviaWnxwo
Charles on December 15, 2008 at 07:03 PM
A Portuguese friend of mine says that when the walls between East and West Germany came down, many of the East Germans who owned Trabants simply threw a few suitcases into the Trabi and started driving. Across the German-French border. Across the French-Spanish border. Across the Spanish-Portuguese border, as long as the car would continue to run. Where the Trabi broke down, that's where they settled. Many of them actually made it to the Atlantic coast - like the driver in "Vanishing Point," they felt driven to get as far away from where they had been as they could. And where the car broke down, or on the beach, that's where the Trabants still are - no one wants to try to recycle them - it's said the body is some weird amalgam of metal and plastic, that what steel there is is poisoned and weakened beyond salvaging.
Nautilus on December 16, 2008 at 04:50 AM
Trabi was an absolute piece of junk built out of a necessity (sheet steel was scarce in the East during the 1960s since the steel mills were in the West) but on the other side it had some reasons to lust after:
- solid spaceframe-like skeleton;
- light weight;
- rather good braking system;
- large space left for the engine (not thet fist-sized piece of junk could actually fill any sort of engine compartment);
For these reasons, it would be very tempting to acquire one and replace the engine with a similar-sized motorcycle powerplant, let's say a Suzuki 600, with a reductor gear to the gearbox. A 600kg car with 70-100bhp would be a bit interesting...
Cookie the Dog's Owner on December 16, 2008 at 09:23 AM
Here's some Trabant jokes for your amusement:
How many workers did it take to build a Trabant? Two - one to fold and one to paste.
How do you double the value of a Trabant? Fill its gas tank.
How do you measure a Trabant's acceleration? With a diary.
For those who may be interested in bringing a Trabi to the U.S. (why? so the kids in Toyota Echoes can make fun of you?), there's an article on how to do it here:
http://www.geocities.com/trabantusa/ImportingTrabants.html
Jim Bob on December 16, 2008 at 11:34 AM
I want one because no one else has it. Everyone can get a GOOD small car, like a Sentra, or a Civic, but they are way too normal. No one looks twice at one. Almost no one in the US with a normal life has seen a Trabant. I would also drive a Zaporozhetz (The Soviet VW) for the same reason. Driving an unusual Communist car (even one modernized with an actual good Western drivetrain) in the US is a cheap way to have a real head turner. Plus, the car weighs 1355lbs. That means a 135hp engine would give it a power to weight ratio comparable to a LS1 F body. So, you could have a low 13 second car that gets 30-40mpg if you gear it right. Even the stock engine from a mid 90's Civic EX (D16Z6 or D16Y8)with 125hp would scream in this flyweight car.
Collin on December 16, 2008 at 03:35 PM
Screw the Cherokee SRT-8, driving (or even attempting to) a Trabant fast is my idea of an adrenaline pounding experience; imagine this heap at 60 MPH.
Slick on December 16, 2008 at 04:29 PM
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=AMfD3WKr6BI v8 trabants are pretty much the greatest thing in history. fo real, this fine gangsta whip is a true symbol of what happens when east and west work together for the betterment of mankind. also
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=sXcsVO1iHA8
East German Steel... errr duroplast FOR GREAT VICTORY AGAINST DECADENT IMPERIALIST RUNNING DOGS