Revell 1:24 Trabant 601 Universal.

[richellis]

The Trabant was produced in East Germany by VEB Sachsenring from 1957 and over 3 million where built before the production line closed in 1991. With its 2 stroke engine that suffered from poor performance the Trabant was a popular and well loved car in the former eastern bloc due to its simple construction and ease of maintenance and repair. The Trabant body was made from a plastic called Duroplast, this was made from waste materials from industury including cotton and resins. There are a few different versions of the Trabant built, including the most popular saloon (sedan or limousine) that Revell produced a kit of previously, and now they have given us a kit of the 3 door estate (Universal or Station wagon) version. The Trabant has now become a classic and examples of this car are sought after with collector’s world wide.
For the last 2 years of production, following the fall of the Berlin Wall production of the Trabant was improved by VW, given a 1.1l Polo engine, and upgrades to the brakes and suspension it was known as the Trabant 1.1

The shell comes as a single moulded part in a nice beige colour plastic, the shape looks good and it is very well cast with sharp detail. The panel lines look nice and to scale. The bonnet and boot are separate and can be made to open and close if required.

The rest of the kit is cast in a light grey plastic and the detail is nice on the parts with no flash anywhere on the kit. I had a look over the Trabant saloon at Cosford a few days ago and the detail, and shape of the interior parts look well captured, the Trabant is a simple car so don’t expect allot of bits and bobs to add to the inside. Lots of brown paint will be needed to capture to look of the interior of the Trabant. Under the bonnet, that is separate to the body, is a nicely captured engine block, it will be a good base for some detailing and as you can have an opening bonnet it would be worth a bit of effort here, not forgetting the lump on top of the engine is the fuel tank! Under the car the shape of the monocoque chassis, drive and suspension parts is well detailed, with the characteristic single leaf sprung front end and coil sprung back axle. The exhaust can be fitted last, a nice touch as it will need to be a metal colour contrasting with the rest of the chassis.

The Trabant has some distinctive mouldings along the body and these are separate parts on the kit, they should be painted aluminium, with a thin black line on the top. The radiator grill is nice for a plastic part, it isn’t see through so you will need to paint it silver, then add a dark wash to give it depth, I’d like to see an etched metal grill to capture this better but Id doubt any AM or Revell will be doing this!

The simple steel wheels and rubber tyres capture the look of the Trabant well, the tyres have nice tread and side wall detail, a rub with some sandpaper will weather them down nicely.

A clear sprue contains all the windows and lights for the model. The glass is thin and to scale and my sample has no flaws. The lights have engraved and raised lines to show the lens patterns and the shape of the rear lights is well done and not too heavy.

A small decal sheet contains the dials for the dashboard and the badges for the body, they are nice with some small detail on the decals, the metallic look for the badges are nice and realistic looking. There is a selection of registration plates for various eastern bloc countries.

I like the Trabant, it’s a quirky little car and I got one of the earlier Saloon kits from Revell, and I’m glad to see this estate version. It’s a very nice kit and the details are well caught and the moulding is very good with no flash on my sample.

For some photos of the saloon version at Cosford look Here!

Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

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[Séan Pádraig]

Very quirky automobile... I can see this as the base of many interesting conversions.... The XDX decal is very clever.

[richellis]

Yea, I liked that too! Im looking at a 1.1 conversion for the saloon I have in the stash