Meeting Trabbi clubs in Romania
August 1, 2007
By Dan

Transylvanian hospitality has been stunning. Everywhere we have been, people have been happy to feed us, house us and take a look at the cars – particularly the two Trabant clubs we visited, in Udvarhely and Brasov.

We arrived in Udvarhely late on Wednesday (August 1, 2007) after an arduous drive through the mountains. Navigating the Carpathians has been fun. For steep sections the Trabbi’s will only make it in first or second gear – they rev like lawn mowers and hit 20 or 30 kph. There tends to be a long line of traffic behind us and I'm sure they’d be honking if it wasn’t for the sheer ridiculousness of our vehicles.
The way down is easier – the lightweight Trabbis handle well, even if the brakes are a little weak, and when it’s dry you can easily carve the little beauties round the turns.

We had arranged to meet the Trabant Club of Udvarhely earlier that day, but were characteristically late and unsure how to get in touch with them. They must have had spotters around the town, because within a few miles of entering the place a souped up Trabbi swooped down on us, overtaking and flashing its lights, then leading us to a nearby petrol station.
There we were greeted by another five Trabbis, along with their owners, and a woman from a Romanian newspaper.

The Trabbi owners swarmed around our cars, lifting the bonnet to examine the engines and tinkering with the lights – they looked like little nanobots scurrying over the cars. Most were about the same age as us and they had opted to stick with the original Trabbi exterior, but beef-up the interiors and stereos.

They took us on a tour of the town and then to a late night photoshoot for the newspaper outside the local museum. Within minutes the police turned up. I had heard bad things about Romanian cops and was a little anxious, but after some discussion they decided to help us out by stopping traffic at the end of the street so we could drive the wrong way down a one-way road and get some good shots for the show. It’s amazing what a press card and a some brightly coloured Trabants can do.

We left Fez (our blue Trabbi) with the club, who whisked it away for some minor repairs (turned out they spent a couple of hours with it and took the engine out to fix a few problems), while the reporter took us for dinner.
The newspaper then paid for us to stay in a local hotel – hot showers, free palinka and a free breakfast. Transylvanian hospitality.

The next day (Tuesday August 2, 2007) was probably our worst on the road so far. Constant breakdowns, first from Fez (the blue Trabbi), then from Gunther (our Mercedes support vehicle). We spent a couple of hours in a quiet old town called Homorod, high in the mountains while Tony made repairs. Gunther is proving a lot of trouble, and to top it off Tony forgot to close the bonnet properly before driving along the potholed mountain roads and the hood duly leapt up and smashed the windshield.
We finally limped in to Brasov late at night after covering just 150km in eight hours.
We were again met by a Trabbi club, but the contrast could not have been different. While the Trabant Club of Udvarhely had stayed loyal to the original shape and colour of the cars, the Trabant Club of Brasov had no qualms with modifying to suit their own, rather camp, tastes.
The owners were men and women in their 30s and 40s with neon pink, lime green, and bright orange convertibles that were impeccably manicured.

Again we were treated to dinner, this time by the town’s mayor (in some incredibly short shorts), and again we were followed around by the Romanian media – this time a couple of TV channels.
The Trabant Club then kindly let us sleep on their floors and put on breakfast for us while they took a look at or cars and we got the Mercedes fixed- $150 for a new windshield, plus $150 to finish taking out the LPG system, a job that got half done in Budapest. Luckily for Tony there was a bar at the mechanics.
Few of our hosts spoke more than broken English and I'm ashamed to say I made little effort to communicate that morning, leaving Zsofi to do the talking (in this part of Transylvania they speak Hungarian…)
“You’ll be lucky to get 5,000km in those Trabants” was the verdict of the seemingly knowledgeable Trabbi man in Brasov, as interpreted by Zsofi, “those cars are terrible. Who did this work for you? You should have brought the cars to us.”
This worried us. The guy owned at least three Trabbis himself and had a garage crammed with spare parts. I'm pretty sure he knew his stuff.
“They’re snobs,” was Tony P’s reply, and he had a point – their cars did look impeccable, they were clearly perfectionists, and we have decided to take their opinion with a pinch of salt.

mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com

ends