Talk:Trabant
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Is the nickname Trabbi (two "b"s) or Trabi? Googlefight prefers Trabi, and that's how I've seen it up to now:
Trabbi ( 31 500 results)
versus
Trabi ( 76 600 results)
of course, I'll defer to someone from .de.
- My German wife says that it doesn't really matter - but is inclined towards one 'b' since it's short for Trabant which has one 'b'. However, she also says that, as in English, the one 'b' inclines one to pronounce it with a long 'a' which is also incorrect, so overall both spellings are ok and understood. Graham 12:29, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Widespread use of Fiat 128 engines?
This came as many owners were already replacing the initial engine with that of a Fiat 128.
This is news to me. Such practice would have been extremely rare, if for no other reason than the very short supply of any Fiat engines. (BTW, de:Trabant (PKW) doesn't mention anything about Fiat engines put in Trabis.) If we can't come up with any evidence to this being a widespread practice, I suggest removing the sentence. --ThorstenNY 18:49, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
- http://www.team.net/www/ktud/601_2.html and http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/car_info_awz_trabant.htm mentiones engine conversions with Fiat 128 engines. // Liftarn
[edit] Planned use of "smaller" VW Polo engines in updated Trabi?
Having recently quit my standing as a 1991 Polo owner, I would have regarded a full 1100cc engine (i suspect 1089 or 1108? actual sizes of late 70s/early 80s polo motors giving 50 and 60hp output, alongside the teeny 898cc with 40hp) as a slight upgrade - my own used a 1043cc with a reasonably healthy 45hp / 33kw output. This motor series was used (also including the 1272cc (55 - 75hp, 113hp supercharged / 40-55 and 83kW) versions, and probably larger capacities) by VW in the Golf and Polo (with variations on it's technological outfitting, but always with the 1.05 having the same capacity and power) from about 1983 through to 1995, when it was discontinued in favour of their much more up-to-date (and yet smaller!) 999 (50hp) and 1197cc (60hp) units. Indeed I'd be tempted to say it was the most popular through the late 80s, when the Trabant replacement plans were drawn up...
Perhaps the original author's intended meaning referred to the physical size of the whole engine apparatus? (this point needs to be made more obvious!).. I'm intimately familiar with the thing having overhauled one, and it's already impressively compact for what's in there, but may have trouble fitting in the stead of a 2-pot, 600cc 2-stroke (the trabi's engine compartment appears a fair bit lower and shorter than a polo bonnet!) - plus I assume a fair bit of rearrangement would have been necessary regarding cooling and power transmission provisions.
Thoughts on the subject do reveal the remarkably low weight of the vehicle, however - the polo engine has nearly twice the peak power and isn't short on midrange torque, and is fitted to a frame that itself seems lightweight compared to modern superminis and aerodynamic next to the trabant... but even with a close ratio gearbox the car can't claim better than a 1 or 2 second advantage on the 0-60mph (96... call it 100kmh) dash! (This is also despite a 20mph / 33kmh top speed difference, the VW holding claim to a fairly realistic 145kmh/90mph)... I expect at low, city-bound speeds, the trabi may even beat the more powerful car away from the traffic lights, and combined with the handling advantages of it's duroplast-derived low weight, be much quicker on sideroad dashes and be an incredibly entertaining driving experience. (I'm not an owner or a committed fan, but I know how much of a smile something even as light as the polo can raise, and how it can give larger, "quicker" vehicles considerable headaches crosstown, with just a 45hp engine, wide-set 4 speed gearbox, narrow tyres and squashy suspension)
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- -) -MP
- It is actually not as big aproblem as it might seem. The 600cc engine was in fact small (though my back intervened when I tried to lift it out by myself), but this lead to a lot of unused space in the engine compartment. You could fit 4 to 5 sixpacks just on the left side of the engine, so there was plenty of space for the Polo engine. As for the old bonnet, that one had to go. It was replaced by a less sloped, mor angular one.Winnie-MD 13:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
As you can tell from http://www.snydmans-wahn.de/Pics/T11alt/T11-Motorraum.jpg and http://www.snydmans-wahn.de/Pics/Umbau1/Umbau4.jpg the Polo engine fits quite well. You could probably fit an even bigger engine if necessary. // Liftarn
[edit] Movies
There is also a movie called Go Trabi Go. Apokrif 17:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Amusement park ride
There is also an amusement park ride named Trabant, it's pretty common. It does not yet have an article but if and when, it's another disambig I think. ++Lar: t/c 16:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Fast?
The article says trabants are fast: and was compact, fast and durable. Later on, the article says that their 0-60 was approx 21 seconds and top speed 70mph: The car took 21 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h and the top speed was 112 km/h. This isn't exactly fast, is it? Can we remove that adjective?
[edit] "Trabant" meaning
it does not exactly mean "satellite". "Trabant" is a very old-fashioned astronomy term for "moon" ie. "companion/accompanying star/body". It is not commonly used for artificial satellites. The noun "Satellit" means both artificial and natural satellites, though in general talk usually the artificial ones.
[edit] Destruction of Value
There needs to be a discussion of the fact that a finished Trabi was so horrifically worthless that the East German dictatorship could have made more money selling the raw materials for its production. In other words, by manufacturing this shitty Marxist ideal, the Communists were literally destroying value.
[edit] Trabant Diplomat.
I fondly remember the advertisement for the "Trabant Diplomat" in the Saechsicher (sp) Zeitung - featuring a picture of a six-door Trabant.
This was well before the "Wende" and certainly not material for "Neues Deutschland".
Unfortunately, chances are nil that this ad even existed in digital format, let alone that it could be found by Google ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.93.67.168 (talk) 14:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Witze
A Cold War-era joke about the Trabi — recently featured on http://www.spiegel.de — goes like this:
A Trabi comes racing down the highway, misses a curve and comes to rest in a field over a cowpie. The cowpie says, "So, what are you?" "I'm a car," the Trabi replies. "Ha!" says the cowpie, "If you're a car, then I'm a pizza!"
Sca 14:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
