#trabant #gdr #veteran Fastest Trabant of the GDR - Schumann Trabi presented and explained technology and history

With 70 hp and 180 km/h, Klaus Schumann's sky-blue Trabant was probably the fastest Trabi in the GDR. Today Wolfgang Hirche owns the Trabant. Hirche was in the Schumann team and worked on this car at the time.

With 70 hp and a top speed of over 180 kilometers per hour, the racing trabant can go from zero to one hundred in less than seven seconds. Incredible key data of the fastest Trabant in the GDR, also known as the Schumann Trabant.
More than 40 years ago, this normal production car rolled off the assembly line with 26 hp. Now the new owner introduces this Trabant to us and tells us a few stories from his life and explains special features to us.


Really interesting is the extra lever next to the driver's seat (the only seat in this car, by the way) with which you can change the mixture preparation. So you can sometimes go lean and sometimes fat. In the event of an emergency, the Trabant is equipped with a fire extinguishing system that can be triggered both from the outside and from the inside.
With this Trabant, Klaus Schumann was a total of 5 times first, 3 times second and 3 times third, an unbelievable achievement, which was never surpassed in GDR times.

The Trabant is still in its original condition today, as it was built by Schumann and his team, including Wolfgang Hirche.

We know that Trabis often have an eventful history, but there are always some that stand out in their specialness. For example this blue racing Trabi, driven by Klaus Schumann and presented here by his colleague Wolfgang Hirche. Klaus Schumann himself started racing in 1974, still with his predecessor model. In 1980/81 a new, this car was built.

At that time it was also unimaginable that, depending on the weather conditions, the gearbox would be changed before the race and in order to make the Trabant even faster, people tried and experimented a lot, some with success, some things were then preferred to be left alone.
Starting with the lowering of the car, the engine was tuned, as they say, so instead of 26 hp approx. 70 hp, the gearbox is original, but with different gear ratios.