2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
Zwickau not only stands for the manufacture of the Trabant. Another brand celebrated its birth in Saxony 50 years before production of the “Volkswagens der DDR” began.
The heart of the automotive state of Saxony beats in Zwickau - and has been for more than 100 years. The fourth largest city in Saxony is the birthplace of legendary car brands such as Horch, Audi and not least the Trabant, which was first put on wheels 50 years ago. Today Volkswagen is continuing the automotive history of Zwickau. Visitors can experience the fascination of car manufacturing in the city up close - in the present and the past.
From Phaeton-Horch to Trabbi
The August Horch Museum should be a must for every visitor to Zwickau. It is considered the only one of around 170 German car museums that is located at an original production site. A little outside the historic city center, August Horch built the first car with the brand name Audi in 1909 in the northern suburb.
The museum tells his story and that of his company on an area of around 3000 square meters. Almost all vehicles ever built in Zwickau can be seen. Right at the beginning of the tour, a Phaeton Horch from 1911 with 28 hp shines. The hearts of technology freaks make early Horch engines such as a four-cylinder from 1904 or the first series-produced eight-cylinder from 1926 in Germany beat faster. A special exhibition is dedicated to the Trabi from November. The occasion is the 50th birthday of the “Volkswagens der DDR”. On November 7, 1957, the first of a total of 3.7 million Trabis rolled off the production line in Zwickau.
Thousands at the Trabbi meeting
While the shiny cars in the Horch Museum should not be touched, the International Trabant Register Association is offering Trabis to touch and try out in the anniversary year. In a special exhibition on the club premises, a former company hall on the edge of the city center, 24 vehicles can be seen.
Every summer, when thousands of Trabi and Trabi fans from all over the world roll into the Trabi meeting in Zwickau, it becomes clear that the long ridiculed GDR car has long since enjoyed cult status around 17 years after reunification. Zwickau's Lord Mayor Dietmar Vettermann (CDU) calls the Trabi “the city's trademark”.
Production of luxury cars
The present of automotive engineering can also be marveled at in Zwickau. Volkswagen has been producing cars around ten kilometers from the city gates since 1991. The group leads registered groups of visitors through the huge production halls in which Golfs and Passats roll off the assembly line, but also the bodies for the luxury Phaeton and Bentley cars.
If you need a change after so much car, you can follow in the footsteps of the composer Robert Schumann and his wife Clara in the nicely renovated old town of Zwickau. The couple's former home is now a museum. The late Gothic Gewandhaus, in which the Zwickau Theater has been playing since 1855, the town hall with its classicist facade, the priestly houses from the early 13th century and the Mariendom with a winged altar that has just been restored by the Nuremberg master Michael Wolgemut from 1479 are also worth a visit value. (Erik Nebel, dpa)
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