Werner Lang: Man behind the despised and beloved Trabant
1922-2013
WERNER Lang, who has died aged 91, was the mechanical engineer behind the Trabant — the rattletrap car that became a symbol of the failings of communist government. Yet the story of its development represented a triumph against the odds.
The “Trabbie”, as it was affectionately known, was launched in Zwickau, East Germany, in 1957, the same year as Sputnik — the name Trabant means satellite. But the car — wheezing, sputtering and belching clouds of oily blue smoke, and with a body made of fibre-reinforced plastic known as Duroplast— had more in common with a lawn mower than with a modern car. With its two-stroke engine it could accelerate from zero to a top speed of about 100km/h in a less-than-impressive 21 seconds.
The car had more in common with a lawn mower than with a modern car
The context of the development of the Trabant was the acute shortage of raw materials that plagued Eastern European manufacturing in the 1950s. After World War 2 huge quantities of steel and other valuable commodities, including whole factories, had been taken to the Soviet Union, from East Germany in particular.
However, some of the VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau had survived. It had been a car factory before World War 2, and those of its designers still in place were determined not to be beaten by Soviet vandalism or shortages of materials.
The Trabant’s outer panels were developed using cotton compressed with poly resin derived from brown coal — yet the body panels crash-tested better than most European sedans of the era.
The engines were two-cylinder models because all that was available were motorcycle motors. There were no disc brakes, no radiator, no oil filter or oil pump and no fuel gauge. The flow of petrol was powered by gravity — the tank was above the engine — so there was no fuel pump. Because the engines had only a few moving parts they were relatively easy to maintain.
Lang was appointed chief engineer at the Zwickau plant in 1958, a year after the first model P50 Trabant rolled off the production line, and under his guidance the car would become perhaps the greatest industrial success story of communism.
Numerous models were made during the first 10 years of production, but the most famous was the 601, which first appeared in 1967 and continued to be sold until production of all Trabants ceased in late 1991 following German reunification.
While similar to earlier models, the 601 featured window cranks instead of sliding panels, a shelf under the dashboard and wind deflectors for draught-free ventilation.
For all its shortcomings the Trabant 601 became highly sought-after in Eastern Europe, and buying one — prospective owners did not order their new Trabant, they applied for it — involved joining a waiting list that could last up to 18 years.
Ironically it was the car’s popularity (altogether about 3.2-million vehicles were produced) that deterred Lang from putting modernised versions into production — that, and the East German government’s reluctance to invest in further development of a car with a long waiting list.
When the Berlin Wall fell Trabants were abandoned in their thousands as a hated reminder of communist rule. Yet Lang lived to see the car acquire cult status, with owners converging at Trabbie festivals at which he was an honoured guest.
For many former “Ossies”, or East Germans, ownership of a Trabant came to be seen as a small gesture of defiance against the cold materialism of a reunified Germany.
Lang was born in the village of Bermsgrün, Saxony, on March 23 1922. He completed an engineering apprenticeship in 1940 and enrolled for an automotive engineering degree in Zwickau. His degree was interrupted by war service in the Wehrmacht, but in 1944 he deserted and joined German comrades fighting alongside Italian anti-fascist partisans.
After the war, Auto Union brands were unified as the VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. In 1958 Lang was appointed chief designer. From 1970 to 1983 he was director of science and technology at Sachsenring. — © The Daily Telegraph, London