01
Origins
The 601 of 1964 was meant to be one step in the Trabant's evolution; instead the planned successors were cancelled, and it became the permanent car of East Germany — nearly three million built to 1990 with only detail change, its 600cc two-stroke buzzing behind waiting lists that stretched past a decade. Ownership was an event; spares, a currency. The paradox is that the 601 began as reasonable engineering — front-wheel drive and independent suspension when several Western small cars had neither — and was then embalmed by an economy that could not afford progress. In 1989 sputtering columns of 601s crossing the opened border became the Wende's defining image. The car the West mocked had, in the end, delivered its passengers to exactly where they wanted to go.
Trabant 601 L at the Szocialista Jáműipar Gyöngyszemei 2008 · János Tamás · CC BY 2.0
