The Old Trabant History

The name was inspired by Soviet Sputnik. The cars are often referred to as the Trabbi or Trabi, pronounced with a short a.
Since it could take years (usual waiting time 15 years) for a Trabant to be delivered from the time it was ordered, people who finally got one were very careful with it and usually became skillful in maintaining and repairing it. The life-span of an average Trabant was 28 years. Used Trabants would often fetch a higher price than new ones, as the former were available immediately, while the latter had the aforementioned waiting period of mostly at least ten years.

The Trabant was a steel monocoque design with roof, bootlid/trunklid, bonnet/hood, fenders and doors in Duroplast, a form of plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton. This helped the GDR to avoid expensive steel imports, but in theory did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it allegedly performed superior to some contemporary Western hatchbacks. The Trabant was the second car to use Duroplast, after the “pre-Trabant” P70 (Zwickau) model (1954–1959). The duroplast was made of recycled material, cotton waste from Russia and phenol resins from the East German dye industry, making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.

Source: Wikipedia

The New Trabant nT

The “newTrabi” idea becomes the “Trabant nT” concept car
The new Trabant nT is supposed to emphasize the trend to simplification and ecological responsibility – without abandoning fun, emotion and safety. Its seed money is the publicity, the sympathy and attention, which the brand Trabant attracts. It already has its fans today.

The continuation of the newTrabi story at this year’s IAA in Frankfurt/Main is highly anticipated. In hall 8, the prototype of the “Trabant nT” will be presented to the world public. “We are past the vision– we are in the implementation phase”, emphasizes IndiKar-CEO Ronald Gerschewski, one of the initiators and main actors for the vehicle development. He continues: “Our goal is the series-production-readiness.” In the past two years since Herpa began the “Initiative newTrabi”, they’ve come closer to that goal. The concept is sound and ready for a strong investor to become involved in the serial design and –production. The best-case scenario would see the first “Trabant nT” with electric motor ready for sale in 2012.

Source: trabant-nt.de

Bottom line: I think that the new Trabant nT concept could be a serious contestant of the much known Mini Cooper, VW Beetle, Fiat 500, all these three being the legends of motoring.