Honestly, we cannot recall the day, not even the season when we set our mind to buy a Trabant. Rémi often jokingly talked about it to friends and family and we got different reactions from the very beginning. All in all we always managed to convince people that it was a feasible, cool idea.
We had been looking for Trabants from about March on, on a popular Hungarian website, dedicated for second hand cars.
We were hesitating between two types: the Trabant 1.1 - a newer edition with 4 stroke VW engine and the Trabant 601 with 2 stroke engine.
Obviously the previous one seemed as an easier and safer solution, but turned out that it is not possible to register it in France for one reason - any Trabants brought to France must be registered as an old timer. This regulation is based mainly on environmental protection reasons and the fact that these cars were never sold in France. The 1st criteria for an old timer is its age, that must be at least 30 years. Only the Trabant 601 cars are this old.
Before finding out enough of these regulations we visited a few Trabant 1.1 that were for sale in May. We were often concerned and disappointed about their rusted conditions. Otherwise it was already fun to drive these!
In July we went back to Hungary for a second time and when the decision was made about the model, the car was somehow just there.
We were very lucky in fact, as we found a car 17 km from Eszter's home town. We visited it immediately and bought it after 2 hours of discussion with the seller. After months of dreaming, planning and searching for the perfect car we were happy to finally be the owners of it! It was a Trabant 601, from 1987. Even happier since the colour was exactly the wished blue, just like in the famous movie 'Go Trabi go'.
We scheduled one week to organise the administration and get the car ready for the big road trip.
Trabant 601 info for dummies
As we were amateurs, we learnt everything on the way of our Trabant adventures. It's not so difficult to understand at least a little bit this car.
A few technical details
| Engine: | Two cylinder two stroke | |
| Cooling system: | Air-cooled | |
| Clutch: | Single disk dry clutch | |
| Gearbox: | Four-speed gearbox 1st gear: 4.08 2nd gear: 2.32 3rd gear: 1.52 4th gear: 1.103 Reverse gear: 3.83 | |
| Fuel type: | "Regular" gasoline 88 RON - we used 98 octane petrol | |
| Oil type: | Two stroke engine oil MZ-22 - there's a debate between the synthetic vs regular | |
| Fuel-oil-ratio: | 1 : 40 - nowadays needs to be mixed directly in the tank | |
| Vmax: | 100 km/h - we'd say max 80 km/h, 90 km/h on slopes, 40 km/h on hills | |
Already back in times people carried replacement elements, mostly the spark plugs. After online researches, many phone calls, and car workshop visits we got a few replacement elements too.
We carried:
- spark plugs (they were indeed needed)
- fuel pipes
- replacement belts
- a tire
- and tools to fix the car
Before the trip we had already needed to change the horn and tighten a few pipes.
As our personal items we tried not to carry too many things in case of a break down. We traveled light with our backpacks, camping accessories and a few groceries - mainly soup and pasta. We camped each night in a different camping. That's how we crossed Europe from Hungary to France with a Trabi.
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