Commie cars

Reverend Conehead

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I found this Youtube video interesting. Behind the iron curtain, they drove cars just like we do in the US and other western countries. However, they made a whole bunch of models that we never saw because they were made based on the completely different economic system of those countries and were never exported to us. I've even considered owning an East German car, the Trabant 601, which was pretty much the only car on the road in the DDR (East Germany). The only reason to own such a car would be as a curiosity. They're major clunkers with a two-stroke engine. A Trabant is even worse than a Yugo. However, their design is so simple that they're easy to repair, and you can still order the parts from Germany. It might be fun to own a car no one else has ever seen. Some of these Soviet-block cars look a little stylish, but must of them look hopelessly clunky. Most of them look like they have garbage-quality engines. I'm not sure which ones you could get parts for also like you can with the Trabant.

My dad owns two curiosity cars -- both of them Model Ts. I keep feeling tempted to buy my own curiosity car in the Trabant (or maybe one of these other east-block cars?).

Anyway, check out the commie cars. Leave whatever comments you would like about the cars (but please no political comments).

 

Reverend Conehead

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:facepalm:

Back then they would steal just about anything to keep up with the West.
They had those plans already and ability to make the cars.

The VW Bug certainly would have been a good car to copy. It was simple in design and reasonably easy to build. The Trabant was based on a western car. I forget which one. However, the western one evolved as it slowly got upgraded. With the Trabant, the DDR government saw no need to improve it and just kept building the exact same model year after year. So if they had made a Bug, they probably would have been building the same one in 1990 that they did in 1960 .
 

rags747

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I have seen many of those cars before, only a couple are mildly interesting to me at least...the Tatra's at the end of the video. Post up a couple of pics of your pops Model T's. I would think that there are many curiosity type cars for u to investigate.
 

Melonfeud

I Copy!,,, er,,,I guess,,,ah,,,maybe.
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Well, ya know about that General Motors patented 3 cylinder diesel engine that's pretty much standard issue over in Europe?,,, THE ONE THAT AVERAGES OVER 50 M.P.G.?,,,,YA,,,I thought soo_O
 

csirl

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Lada started exporting to western Europe in the 1980s. I had an uncle who bought one. Wanted an uncomplicated, simple and very cheap car. Lada owners were the butt of many jokes along the lines of:

How do you double the value of a Lada? Fill it with gas.

And them looking like dumpsters on wheels.

I remember it being very rugged - the gear shift clunked like a old tractor and ergonomics didnt seem to apply to the instruments.
 

lukin2006

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In Soviet Russia, a Man Goes to Buy a Car...

He goes up to the owner and asks for a car, to which the owner responds:

'You know there is a 10-year waiting list?'

The man then answers, 'OK,' and after some time he then agreed to buy a car.

So he pays for the car in advance, and just before he leaves he asks the owner,

'Can I pick the car up in the morning or afternoon?'

'It's 10 years away, what does it matter?'

'The plumber is coming in the morning'.

:lmao2::lmao2::lmao2:

I heard this joke back in the '80s, seemed appropriate here...
renderTimingPixel.png
 

Longboysfan

hipfake08
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The VW Bug certainly would have been a good car to copy. It was simple in design and reasonably easy to build. The Trabant was based on a western car. I forget which one. However, the western one evolved as it slowly got upgraded. With the Trabant, the DDR government saw no need to improve it and just kept building the exact same model year after year. So if they had made a Bug, they probably would have been building the same one in 1990 that they did in 1960 .

I had a 67 and a 69 bug.
They could not have gone wrong there.
 
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