German Car made from Wool Coats

You thought a 1 year wait was long!? The 1987 Trabant 601 S was built in East Germany and features a duroplast body and two-stroke engine. Dennis found this Trabant at the Tucson Classics Car Show in Arizona.

[@franciscoflores7911]

I like the owners enthusiasm for his car, and the knowledge he has of the brands history. Very informative.

[@theodorusbodaar1370]

But naturally , he did forget to mention that this car does have a wooden frame underneath to carry the body !!! Theodore-amsterdam

[@Huebel01]

@@theodorusbodaar1370Wrong! The Trabant has a regular steel frame. The P70 (pre-predecessor of the 601) had a partially wooden frame.

[@bennyhannover9361]

@@Huebel01 not only steel frame but steel chassis and underpinning for the doors and roof the outside coachparts are clicked into this…from 1958 to 1991, 33 years about 3.3 million cars…

[@aspalovin]

Oooh, a Trabby... Not too shabby! For former Commies and Future Canadians

[@danmar007]

🤣

[@SquirminHermanthe1eyedGerman]

I remember seeing these all over the place in my travels to East Germany to get to Berlin as I was born in Augsburg when the wall was first built in 1962 ✌💖☮

[@bobothree]

Dennis, just a thanks for my Saturday morning car show.

[@gregbenwell6173]

Back in the 1980s there was a movie named "Driving Me Crazy" that featured one of these cars!! The movie was a comedy film about a guy who took one of these cars, and made it run on turnips!!!! BUT his fuel was so explosive, that it turned the car into a "rocket on the road"!!!! The movie is hysterical, and I have watched it many times!!

[@marc80sroverfan95]

Such a funny car but cool to see on a American car show. Very cool and enthusiastic owner with lots of passion and knowledge. Fun to listen too.

[@bikkiikun]

Shortly after that in 1990 the Trabant 1.1 came out, with a 1.1l four cylinder otto-motor (a modified variant of the VW Polo engine).

[@THROTTLEPOWER]

That's really cool!!!!!! 🙂

[@etiennegregoire3091]

Really like these odd cars. In Ottawa in the mid 80s i remember test driving a new Skoda Rapid...they were sold here for a year or two. That too was a car from another era but new. Seen a Trabant at car show only.

[@starguard4122]

Thank you for taking the time to make this video for us. It was very informative!

[@Brodaty_Brodacz]

seen plenty of them in my childhood and from the sound of Trabant you could define it from miles .

[@marunzel]

I had one, 6V electric. Aweful light, kept it on high beam only to see a little bit. No one coming towards me noticed/complained 😂 Had a getto blaster (on batteries) on the back seat to get some music. The brakes were really bad (drum brakes all around). Low power and relatively high consumption (for the power). I was happy when I got the money to replaced it. 😅 My parents waited 13 years to get one. Unbelievable. My father traded the brand new Traband in to a Warburg Station Wagon which was 15 years old. Crazy time, hard to understand today

[@lht9917]

Hello from Argentina!!!

[@bartsimpson6767]

Howdy 🇺🇸

[@Deano_Marty]

It looks better than it did when it left the factory.

[@thatdudereviews3146]

as the owner of the car thanks for the kind words

[@bondisteve3617]

Thanks Mr. Dennis.

[@Demo12345]

I've really wanted to get a Trabant 601 in papyrus white that was specifically the saloon variant (the one shown in the video) for years now. I think it's a fascinating vehicle with an interesting history that (I might be crazy) looks nice. They also made these in station wagon and pickup configurations.

[@jaimepadilla9548]

Right before this I was watching something about the new Nissan. GTR I don't think I made it half way and got so bored. And I put this on. And let's just say this channel never disappoints. I much rather hear about a history of a car like this and how it works then to watch a new dumb car that looks like a 5 year old design

[@DarkElfDiva]

The star of the video game Jalopy.

[@davemckee4907]

Needs a Hyabusa trans plant!

[@thatdudereviews3146]

many vw motors fit and have been swapped, 1.8t , 1.9tdi, or even a vr6 fits

[@etiennegregoire3091]

Me again. Just remembered another odd car sold in Canada. The Innocenti turbo

[@Imintune...]

Its ready for winter driving. 😂

[@oi32df]

12 years to wait for it and after the wall fell people abandoned them on the street like recycling bins.

[@Ripplin]

Telling Robert "Aging Wheels" Dunn about this... :)

[@anabsolutepossibility]

Now I know what to turn my old clothes into

[@andrew2528]

Don't tell me I'm the only one that immediately looked for 'Trabant head on collision' on youtube after watching this??

[@bartsimpson6767]

Cool ride, but I am not ready to sell my '74 beetle ✌️

[@jeshkam]

Achtung Baby! 😎☀️

[@theodorusbodaar1370]

Jahwol , Het Comrade 😊

[@theodorusbodaar1370]

Her Comrad!!😮

[@bikkiikun]

I remember the waiting time was somewhere between seven and eleven years, while you waited twelve years for the larger Wartburg.

[@danmar007]

Top Gear made a hilarious special on East European cars.

[@bigsarge2085]

😎

[@johnmiller4973]

Actually the Trabant was built from 1957 to 1991... The last Trabbis had the 1100cc engine from the Volkswagen Polo as the Trabant factory was purchased by Volkswagen

[@thatdudereviews3146]

correct the 57, 58 is the p70, the 59-62 is the p50 and in 63 they built the p60 a p50 with the 600 cc motor vs the 500 the 601 is made from 64-90 or 91 and in 90-91 you could get a 1.1 with the water cooled polo motor

[@60EFFIE]

I guessed 30hp, close, but over. No win on The HP is right.

[@deanlewis8083]

"Der Kleine Trabbi". I remember seeing and hearing about these littering the sides of the autobahn with burnt out motors after the communist wall came down because they could not keep up with the speed limit. My grandparents lived in Berlin and I would visit the wall and look out over no man's land. The Checkpoint Charlie museum has one where they made a escape smuggle compartment in the rear.

[@dejv3052]

Series of randoms explode :D Speed ​​run at level four. Half of Europe has nostalgic memories of seeing this genius machine

[@dalevancleefsr]

If I'm not mistaken, that car has no reverse gear. You shut off the engine, flip a switch to reverse the polarity of the starter and start the engine... running it backwards. All gears were available in "reverse".

[@Huebel01]

Actually no. It has a regular reverse gear.

[@dalevancleefsr]

​@@Huebel01Well, that would explain why they didn't mention it. I would have sworn the Trabant was the car I was thinking of.

[@marunzel]

Sounds like Lanz Bulldog Tractor 😅

[@thatdudereviews3146]

Trabants have a 4 speed on the tree with reverse

[@MrJayrock620]

“Put it H! H!!”

[@SimmeKumpel]

Sometimes even 18 years

[@peacefulscrimp5183]

I hope one day we get back to this type of car

[@bestofalllife]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKOppqOLf6Z_ebs

[@johnnymason2460]

Maybe not this primitive, but I get your point. I doubt we'll ever see a two-stroke engine ever again. Plus, this car needs to have air conditioning to survive in America.

[@thatdudereviews3146]

As the owner no you dont but I get the point, The car is simple but slow no ac not great at stopping but simple is good think mid 90s civic, scion xb

[@aaronburratwood.6957]

It needs a hellcat swap! 😂😂😂LOL 😂😂😂

[@MitzvosGolem1]

Cool. The most green thing we can do keep onr car for decades . Have only one design not thousands of variant versions of models engines giant pickups EVs teslas . Lets open up a Trabant factory put a modern Honda motor in it.

[@z06doc86]

Drop a Hyabusa engine in that bad boy. 😂

[@androidtexts6948]

The joke is you'll get it in ten years buyer. In morning or afternoon? Dealer. Why? Because that's when the plumber is coming

[@cabaneencac5168]

6:21 : ''wow , what a kick'' must say :where the kick ?

[@user-dc4tx3qr5d]

Was that a cigarette lighter under the hood? Also a 120 mile per hour speedometer.

[@thatdudereviews3146]

spedo is in kph and the cig lighter is from a past owner more than likely to a smoke and to plug a light in if you broke down.

[@koenigturbo5907]

car for the "high" ranking:: a Yugo??

[@Blanchy10]

Wonder how they managed to keep the horsepower so low with a 600cc two stroke!

[@thatdudereviews3146]

a very tiny carb, and a very small expansion chamber, with some big boar heads a bigger carb and a sport pipe it is easy to make 40 to 50 hp.

[@Blanchy10]

@@thatdudereviews3146 a 350 MAKES 60HP

[@chrissnodgrass2705]

The car it’s the standard or automatic? We’re the gear shift?

[@stanwbaker]

Four-speed column shift. A hycomat (sort of a fluid-drive-like clutchless system) was available by special order for people missing a leg.

[@lesjayco7785]

“Put it in H!”

[@twistedyogert]

What were the traffic fatality rates in East Germany? That thing looks like a death trap.

[@mjolnirev7890]

There speed limits were lower then area and they weren’t sharing the roads with a bunch of huge suvs and trucks.

[@jaakkoiswatching6437]

If you drive that into a pedestrian at full speed, the pedestrian barely gets hurt.

[@sheldondyck8631]

It gets 300 hectares to a single tank of kerosene.

[@Gitarzan66]

A lot of classic cars can get you laid...

[@Draugluin999]

trebant never hit puberty

[@BloodyBamPot]

No communists to be found after this vid.

[@johnnymason2460]

I am surprised that anyone would have a Trabant. And be proud of that. The Trabant is always on a list of the worst cars ever made.

[@ezghthrt7733]

When the wall came down, one could buy them for next to nothing, as east Germans saw them as a symbol for everything that went wrong and wanted to get rid of them. Nowadays, people appreciate them either for nostalgic, for historic reasons, and they have a lot of character. In a nutshell, this was the peoples' car of east Germany. It's a pity Dennis didn't question him about his motivation and the story of this car. I can imagine being one of very, very few owners in the US makes it interesting, too. Tom Hanks owns one!

[@thatdudereviews3146]

@@ezghthrt7733 As the owner of the car I guess I can share my love for the car. First I had no idea what it was till my now wife who spent some time over in Germany in the early 00s. These cars are still people movers in the small towns in what was former Germany. I saw a picture of one and wanted to know more, after that and collecting many odd ball cars I found one. You are right it is a piece of history it tells a story and brings people memories of good bad or indifferent. It shows what people can do when push comes to shove. At this time about 200 trabants are in the usa.

[@HotRod-wv4vm]

so if I need a fender I could just get one of my coats out of my closet and grind it up.

[@frankdillon6127]

when the wall came down the west Germans were aghast at all the smelly Smokey east German cars coming over the border.

[@wmalden]

Steering wheel looks very VW.

[@frankdillon6127]

a crappy east German version of a Honda 600.

[@marcmenton8063]

To each his own; but this is a piece of junk