New Trabant

[paul]

I saw this Sept 1988 Trabant P601S last Friday in a local scrapyard.
Far too good to let it sit there, I bought it & today it arrived at mine.
It needs work as you can see.
With new bumpers, headlamp rings, a replacement drivers door & a bonnet.
A fresh coat of paint also & this little cutie will be great.
Solid as a rock in all the right places with an A1 mint interior.
Painted wheels with new tyres over rebuilt brakes.
Get the motor running again & fit a new exhaust & she will be good to go.
This will be my 4th Trabant. You can't get these out of your system once you have had one.










Couldn't you just cuddle the little thing? ;D

[downton]

Never had or driven one but they do say its a love it or hate it thing ....bit like marmite!..Keep the pics coming as you progress as it would be great to follow this thread through until the MOT! Good luck ...May even try and get one for myself !..any advice greatly recieved...

[paul]

Cheers Downton.
Will keep a blog on here and on popular classics forum.

[paul]

Today I secured a whole Trabant as a donor car.
Now with two I can guarantee to have every part I need to restore Baby Blue.
I should be collecting the car from Ipswich on Tuesday.

As for the parts from Newcastle, the seller wanted £250 !! :shock:
For this little pile of used second hand items. Nothing new at all . . .

2 rear lamp clusters, one glacier blue, one Kawasaki green
2 ignition coils
1 plastic door window shield
1 door handle, black plastic
1 bulkhead rubber shields for driving column
1 door window winding handle
1 gearstick and plastic handle
Miscellaneous interior fittings (grab handles, interior lamp, air con
control plate)
2 clear plastic rear registration plate lamp covers, with a little
Kawasaki green paint included
2 grey rubber front headlamp seals
2 glacier blue bumpers, one rear, one front. Rear has a little rust
and has a "Mein Herz fur Kinder" sticker on it. Very retro chic
1 handbrake unit and Y shaped bit for the cable on the underside
2 metres approx. of aluminium screw cladding trim (runs along the top
edge of wings, hiding the join)
Unidentified meterage (maybe 2?) of black rubber door seal
1 bonnet catch mechanism
1 mount for something which goes under the dashboard
1 complete sponge steering wheel, column, indicator, ignition (with
keys) unit
3 rubber suspension bush assemblies

I figured for that lot maybe £75 & that was only cos it included the bumpers.

[paul]

Things took a new direction today.

Went for a ride to Ipswich today. I had been offered a free Trabant as a donor for mine.
The chap who owned it, had his own Trab and this car was his donor.
His Trabant was pretty mint so didn't need much. Plus he had another donor.
Only a dashboard air vent & the front leaf spring had been removed.
This car was better than mine. And it was free!!
Noticeably it is a very early model.
6 volt with chrome wrap around bumpers, 2 spoke steering whel & chrome door handles, this car was likely to be a late 60s/early 70s car. So tax exempt.
Driven over in 1994 this early car in cream with lurid green roof had stood in this shed ever since.






Walking back to his house he showed us this Trabant that he had obtained about 5 years ago.
A 1981 P601 in light blue.
Stuffed to the gills with NOS spares, the car itself was a good one he said, but was now obscured by a large tree canopy hiding it.




Having viewed both of these we headed into his house for a cup of tea.
I asked if I could see his Trabant as a good one would provide me much needed inspiration.







This car was lovely. A genuine 41k kilometres from new car. Full history.
Owned by a Doctor in Germany and brought here in 1998.
Gorgeous rare caramel colour with a white roof.
The chap explained that possibly he might be selling this car, in fact flogging everything soon to buy a Landrover.

What could I do???
Hell I offered him a price, he took it and I bought the bloody lot !
So I now have Tons of spares. Four whole cars and a big smile :

[skorob2008]

Wow, quite a haul you have there!
You are as bad as I am with Skodas - I had 4 at once in the early 90's - a new Favorit, 2 x 1986 Rapid Coupes and a 1985 130 LSE ;D
Keep us posted on how things progress

[downton]

Well have to say that was one wothwhile trip! ...So given the low mileage purchase what is in store next? Will the original car that started the thread get to see the road or will you concentrate on one of the othe cars ?

[paul]

Today Rupert came over to help me take the tow bar off my blue Trab.



All Trabs come with a tow bar as standard, but my new caramel car has it missing.
I want it on.
So I tried to un bolt it. All bolts bar one undid.
We jacked the car up as high as we could to try and cut the bolt, but it looked too dodgy.



So with Ruperts Lada we decided to yank the car over onto its side.











Once we had removed the tow bar, using Rupers Lada again we rolled it back on its wheels.







Now we started removing glass, interior & just about anything else i deemed saveable.









All that remains is to call someone to take the rest away.

[paul]

With the aid of my friend Gary & his Volvo V70 estate I spent all day travelling back and forth between Norwich & Ipswich.
Left Norwich at 7am.
Arrived in Ipswich at around 8.20am to load up the first Trabant.
The blue 1981 car was first.
I had only seen it buried in bushes. This was my first look once it had been dragged out.
Oh dear. Mother nature & a poor parking place can be so cruel. :shock: :cry:





Several whacks on the wheels got them to turn freely, so we could load up.



We got it home.
Here Gary & Beverly are seen pushing it into the garage.
The window just fell in to the door as you can see, so they both fell about laughing. :lol: :lol:
Its safe to say this car is spares only.
The 50mph wind from the drive home was enough to pull the duraplast panels away from the rotten steel frame ! :lol: :lol:





Around 10.30 we had put the rotten blue car into the garage & were heading back for Trabant no2.
Which was . . .
My caramel coloured 1982 Trabant.
This car obviously is in superb condition. No worries here. ;D
By 12.30 we were on our way back to Norwich. . . again !!





With no difficulty this car was pushed onto the trailer with no effort.



By 2.00 we were back in Norwich putting this car into a garage.
Then back to Ipswich straight afterwards . . again ! :roll:



Trabant no 3 was the very early Trabant.
This again had been stored for years. Thankfully in a dry garage.
The front end was a bit low as some suspension parts had been removed.







By 3.45 we had loaded up and ready for Norwich again.
We took a last picture beside the fabulous Ipswich School for Girls main building.
The cars previous owner was the caretaker.



By 9pm I was back home.
I gave the white & green Trabant to Gary as thanks for helping me to collect them all.
He plans to put it on the road for Spring 2009.
Should be easy. I have loads of parts ! ;D

[downton]

Hi Paul,how are things going in Trabant heaven? Just noticed how long it is since anyone posted on the forum ..Still with the festive season suppose we all take a rest from the cold workshop ! There seems to be a forum wide lack of interest of late,also a lot of projects that were purchased last year seem to be stalling or up for sale? Admit that I have let the 105 slide a little and my 61 A40 farina has only covered 150 miles in 10 months...Maybe the economic state of things is causing people to hold back maybe? On the upside us eastern bloc car owners are ready for the downturn and even the freeze! Pass the Vodka.... ;D..Let us know how you are and the cars are doing mate...Hope you and yours had a good festive holiday

[paul]

Hi Downton.
I still have them all.
My 6volt beige Trab has been a little trouper.
Covered about 600Kms since it went on the road in October.
Needs a few jobs doing. The other two have been invaluable as donor cars.