Two Stroke Engine of East Germany

Transcript*

Intro

Last week, AK sent us a pretty substantial care package with a couple of things in there. One of which is the kit we will review today. This is the Trabi 601S Rally. Hopefully, I’m pronouncing it right. Uh, this is available and will be shipped on around Q2 2026. So, around Juneish is when it arrives in our store and and when we ship it. Uh, but you know, prior to me showing you this, did you guys even know that AK made kits? Uh to be honest, prior to this year, I never knew. So now you know and now I know. In this review, we will be discussing what the Trabby even is because, you know, it’s a good primer. You may not even know what this car is. Secondly, we will be discussing it extensive and unique features list. Yes, it is quite unique though, uh there is one maybe negative to that and we’ll get to that. And finally, we will be discussing if this is worth a pickup if you’re a beginner. We do have an extensive beginner level audience because we are a store after all. Uh and comparing it lightly to its rival in the model kit car space which will mainly be Tamiya. So both price points and the average features for both brands. Wabam.

Some History

The Trabi or the Trabant family of cars is most commonly used and known and seen in East Germany. Fun fact, rally right there is pronounced almost the exact same in both English and German. Uh with the German pronunciation just having maybe a slightly sharper a otherwise pronounced the same. And again I emphasize the German there because it is very commonly seen in East Germany. I now say East Germany because the time frame in which this kit or sorry the car is produced is in the mid 60s all the way till the very beginning of the ‘9s. So around 1991 right around the fall of the Berlin Wall which fell in ’89. So it truly is a cold war sort of era family of cars. Also, fun fact, the Trabby family of cars is known in East Germany as the people’s car. Does that sound familiar? Well, if it does sound familiar, it’s because it’s basically what Volkswagen is. Not basically, literally. Volkswagen literally means people’s car or folkswagen, right? So, yeah, there we go. And if you’re asking, is that a coincidence? Nope, not at all. And also,

Features List

I repeated the motion just so you can see the opening of the box. But enough about history for now. Let’s get into the features list, which is what you’ve all been waiting for to see whether or not this kit is worth it. So, 80 plastic parts. Very nice. So, that’s around medium range when it comes to the amount of parts. Not too hard, not too beginner friendly, though. We’ll get to that later. Vinyl tires. Okay. Unique 3D printed parts. Okay. Very nice for cooking. Detailed interior and exterior for the chassis. Of course, that makes sense. Oops, almost dropped it there. And then we have four painting and marking options for the decals, decals, decals. Same thing, guys. Just different countries. Leave me alone. Anyway, it’s one pretty substantial decal sheet uh with four different options there. And here are the options that you can use with said decals. Pause if you want to read. But there’s one more feature that I didn’t mention. Can you tell what

Scale

it is? It’s in the box. No, you can’t see it. Here it is. 1/35th scale. And I know car people are like, “That’s kind of gross.” No, that’s gross. And other people, I’ll get to you in a sec. You’re like, nice though. Let’s get to the car people first. I know a lot of you just collect cars, so all of them, 99% of them will be 1/24th with the occasional 1/25th with like the 1 cm difference. You will look at this and you’re like, “Wow, the car is smaller cuz it’s 1/24th versus 1/35th and it’s going to look out of place in my collection.” Unless you’re open to that sort of thing, this is probably a no-go for you. I know carolists and just car hobbyists and enthusiasts in general are very particular. They will be particular about the scale difference. I can assure you that this is a big deal to them. But for I would say anyone else, this is probably a good thing for you. This is the partial negative that I mentioned earlier in the vid. Uh because if you are a history buff of some sort and you do a lot of kits in military or just history based, a lot of you will probably have a lot of 1/35th scale kits. This falls in line with that perfectly. Imagine if you have a T72 tank. You put this and build this right up against that T72 tank because it’s East German. It won’t look out of place. It probably happened all throughout history. You probably have a reference photo referencing what I just talked about. And I have nothing. I just spitball that. But it’s not out of place. It’s perfect for the sort of diarama sort of thing that AK excels at. They have all sorts of tools and things to help with diarama. Not to mention their extensive line of paint and paint sets just catered around militaries. That’s why the 1/35th scale is nice for anyone that’s basically not a car person, but it does mean that it is smaller than 1/24th. Let me reiterate that. I’ll show you the chassis right now. It’s small. Here is the chassis, and it is a nice and petite

Unboxing/Sprue Close Up

4 in. Good personality, though. And here it is. Look at this nice and crisp build. Wow. It’s actually really highly detailed and it’s so smooth as well. Here’s the second sprue which contains the rest of the body of the car including the inside of the door panels plus I believe the dashboard and the seats. So yeah, quite nice. Very clean. Wow. The plastic on this is actually really good. Wow. Here’s a good look at it. And here’s the largest sprew in the box which contains the rest of the car from the tiny things like wipers and such and other miscellaneous things to the roof and the side panels and such grill and the rims. This is This is crazy. And plastic detailing. And the sculpt is off the chain. No flash issues that I’m I can see. No warpages that I can tell. Let’s flip it around. No. Wow. Actually, I can see very little things here, like mold lines, for example, that you’ll have to scrape off. This is great. This is This is really good. Wow. Build quality is insane on this. Here’s the smallest sprew in the box or second smallest. I’ll show you the last one. But these are just the windshields and the lights. Yeah, pretty standard. I don’t like that it’s not molded in. Uh sometimes other car model kit manufacturers get lazy and include the windshields already attached to the chassis, which is a big no no. I hate that with a passion. But thankfully AK is cognizant enough not to to attach the windshields. Let me attach my own windshields. Okay, so thank you AK for doing that. Tamiya, love you though, Tamiya. Behold the smallest sprue in the kit. This is the 3D printed parts. Yes, those are four sets of wheels and rims all included. You can just snip them off, clean them up. Uh, please use warm soapy water to rinse them off and then sand and then do that again. Please wear masks when sanding, please. Uh, so two sprues in total. These are just the headrests for the seats. So, and then these are the sets of wheels. That’s pretty cool. And fun fact, these 3D printed parts are typically not included in your average AK model kit. So, this is a very nice feature. Here is the extended decal sheet. decal deco decal for the four different painting options for this car. Again, rewind the

Decals & Instruction Manual

video if you’re curious to see the four options. But this is nice. This is incredible. Crisp, too. And finally, this kit also comes with a very, very good instruction manual. Possibly the best I’ve ever seen. Possibly. This is good. Wow. And uh it also comes with yeah look at that in colored diagrams with different sort of legends that you’ll see pop up all throughout. So there’s a an included glossery as well right at the beginning. Also the box itself has a nice feature. Shout out AK. It has a foam backing so your kits don’t get destroyed in transit. That’s nice. And finally,

Tires

we have four sets of vinyl tires. So, if you don’t want to use the 3D printed uh tires and rims, and you want to use something that’s more tangible, more real feeling and looking, yes, they can bounce like that and stretch, right, and contract like rubber, but it’s vinyl. Then, feel free to use these. These are again vinyl, not rubber. And if you aren’t familiar with cars, most uh rubber quote unquote tires you see in model kits today are actually made of vinyl. So they’re more stretchy and bouncy uh in the day. So literally when you’re making them, they’re bouncier than your typical rubber tires, though they’re less shiny, but they’re better uh for workable uh sort of environments. You can sand these down, etc. Uh but they do age slightly poorer than rubber. So in a decade from now they may crack. Uh especially when it comes in contact with solvents years years down the line. Uh so when you’re building them, make sure you build them now. Don’t store them waiting for them to age and then they crack once you’re using the application. So if uh you feel like you’ve grabbed a model kit car from a garage sale and it’s an older car and it cracked under solution, it’s probably vinyl. Not a negative, it’s just a feature. With all these features and all this being said, is this kit beginner friendly? So,

Beginner Friendly?

I mentioned the 80 parts feature earlier, and that might sound like a lot, but that’s actually about the average when it comes to not even just model kits, but for even beginner friendly model kits. So, when I’m talking about that, I’m talking mainly about Tamiya cars. Tama cars often hover around the 60 to 100 piece mark even for their beginner friendly kits and it seems like this is no exception. The only difference is that Tamiya kits are 1/24 scale whereas this is 1/35th so it’s a smaller scale. There might be a bit of a rise in difficulty because of its smaller scale. However, that’s not really uh sort of a deterrence because as you can tell, despite the the small chassis, the pieces are still sub substantial. Besides the wiry sort of transmissions and such or the shafts, this is still a kit that has bigish pieces. You won’t really need a lot of tweezer work for this one. So, for beginner friendly uh nature, this is absolutely a beginner friendly kit. Really, there’s only four sprues. If you count um this, then there’s five sprues. Uh but really, yeah, just five sprews, guys. That’s not a lot at all. So, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, this is beginner friendly for sure. So, you’re good if you are interested in something a little different, a 1/35th scale car. to finish off my last point. Uh, and this is the second half of that last point,

Worth the Buy?

which coincides with the beginner friendliness of it. Um, is this kit worth it? Yeah, actually. So, it’s priced at $64.99 Canadian. Uh, for context comparison’s sake and keeping it with the family, a beginner friendly Tamiya kit on average is around $30 Canadian and a high-end Tamiya kit on average is around $85 to $90 Canadian. this sits at a rough midpoint between the two. Um, and in that price point, I would say yes, uh, for sure, 100%. Again, if you’re a car guy, you’ve already said no because the scale is off for you. It’s 1/24th versus 1/35th. You’ve already said no. All right, let’s get that out of the way. But for anything else, for anyone else, uh, I think so, actually, because it’s not just a car kit. This is a car kit with significance with actual sort of crisis level backing beside it. The Cold War from what my parents told me is a tense time in history. Um, and especially if you have or you’re from East Germany, your parents are from East Germany, you may actually have some sort of ties to a Trabby at one point in time. Um, that would be cool for sure. And if you’re that kind of person, then 100% this is worth it. And uh they made it 1/35th scale for that exact reason because you can put it alongside diaramas and such. Um and 1/35th is primarily a militaryra scale. Um so it’s perfect fit. Just a perfect fit. So long story short, it’s worth it because of all the parts and it’s a really really good and seamless beginnerfriendly build. and it has added features, an extensive decal sheet with four options at least. You could actually mix and match that for an endless combination. Um, and yeah, to be honest with you, 64 bucks, it’s right on the money. It’s a midpoint. Um, and it shows in the build, I would say. So, well, that’s it for me today. Thank you guys so much for watching. Are you

Paul’s Conclusion

Eastern European? No, no, no, no. Uh, basically do do you have any connections with this car in real life? Like did your parents immigrate from the 60s to the ’90s to Canada and they owned a car like this? Do they have a picture like this? You want to recreate it or you yourself as an immigrant from those times? Did you own a car like this? Let us know in the comment section down below. That’ll be cool to find out. Send us your testimonies. Uh, and then down below also in the description box is our social media pages in addition to our realtime inventory sunwardhobbies.ca. So, pick your poison, pick your platform of choice. And yeah, follow us there. Get interactive. Uh, and then finally, hit the like and subscribe button. Of course, we’re trying to hit 20K before end of year, and I think we will make it just based on trajectory. So, yes, that’s nice. Gone are the days where we’re begging for 1,000 subs. That was like two and a half years ago. Wow. Time flies. It felt like yesterday. So yeah, that’s it for me today. This is Paul signing out.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano