Werner Lang Dies

[colcol]

Werner Lang has passed away on 17-6-2013, he was the engineer who designed the Trabant.
The rattle trap car that became the potent symbol of the faillings of communist goverments.
Yet the story of of its development represented a triumph against the odds.
The 'Trabbie' as it was known was launched in East Germany in 1957 the same time as the sputnick, [also the same time as uncle col was born, the nurses called me sputnick!], the name Trabant means satellite. But the car itself was anything but futuristic, wheezing and spluttering and belching clouds of oily blue smoke, with a body made of fibre reinforced plastic, known as Duroplast, the car had more in common with a lawnmower than a car, with its 2 stroke engine, it could go from 0 to 100kph in a shattering 21 seconds. The context of the development of the Trabant, was the shortage of raw materials that plagued Eastern Europe in the 1950's. After WW2, huge amounts of steel and other valuable products, including whole factories had been taken from East Germany to Russia. Some of the Factory had survived, and before the war, it was an Audi factory, and with the original designers who were determined not to be beaten by the Soviet vandals or shortage of materials.The Trabant's Duroplast outer panels were developed using cotton that the Russians didn't want, and was compressed with polyresin derived from brown coal, yet the body panels crashed tested better than most European cars of that era.
The engines were 2 cylinder 2 stroke motors from motorbikes, because thats all were available.
There were no disc brakes, radiators, oil pump, fuel gauge, the flow of petrol was was powered by gravity, the fuel tank was above the engine. The motor only had 5 moving parts, so they were cheap to maintain, the stying of the Trabant was once described as a kindergarten childs drawing of a Triumph Herald. The best known Trabant was the 601, which appeared in 1967, and was sold until 1991, [when the wall came down], the 601 had wind up windows a shelf under the dashboard and wind deflectors, for draught free ventilation, the 1958 to 1967 P50 Trabant did not have these faetures. When the East Germans wanted a Trabant, they didn't order one, they applied for one, and would be put on a list that could take up to 18 years to get one, the last few years of the 'Trabbies' life, and with the reunification of the 2 Germany's, they were powered by a Volkswagon Polo motor, Werner Lang lived long enough to see The Trabant become a cult car, which he would be an honored guest at Trabbie Festivals, he was aged 91, Colin.