By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
A 1986 Trabant 601 is an unlikely automotive to turn heads.
Not a muscle car, not a luxury vehicle, not a sports car – it was East Germany’s answer to the Volkswagen. A purely functional automobile. So functional that the makers decided they would never change its styling after 1957. The car was manufactured until 1991.
Yet, when Alex Gray Vassil-Horse parks his Trabant on Bowling Green’s Main Street, people will stop, and take a gander. Walking around it to give it a once over, and discuss it among themselves.
This is usual, Vassil-Horse said as he watches.
The Trabant, he explains, during an interview with BG Independent News, is one of his dream cars. He loves cars. He loves working on them. He loves driving them. Though all his vehicles are worthy of a collector’s attention, they are no show pieces but daily rides to get him around town.
Vassil-Horse is a graduate student in biological sciences with a concentration in molecular genetics working with Ray Larsen at Bowling Green State University. At the time of the interview in July he was expecting his lab job would be going away, forcing him to take some time off from his studies to return home to earn some money.
Not an unusual situation for Vassil-Horse. Some people assume his family has a lot of money because they own a lot of cars, he said. That’s not the case. The cars are their passion, often bought for little money. Then they invest ample sweat equity to bring them up to speed.
“It’s an escape for me,” he said. “I get a car for dirt cheap, beef it up, and it drives. Anyone else would have seen it as scrap. It’s like a sense of power.”
Last summer for his father’s birthday, he transferred an engine and did rewiring on a 1996 Grand Cherokee. The vehicle’s body, his father’s every day ride, was in such bad shape the family dubbed it the “Death Jeep.” The engine, though, was fine. So, they located the same model that had a dead engine, but a good body despite cosmetic damage because of an accident, and interior damage because of a search for drugs. And transplanted the engine from his father’s car into it.
Every vehicle, Vassil-Horse said, has a story.
The Trabant’s dates back to when Vassil-Horse’s father was serving in an artillery unit in Germany in the waning years of the Cold War.
He told his son about the vehicles he’d seen there, such as buses that when loaded moved so slowly uphill that he could run pass them.
Vassil-Horse, 24, was intrigued by the Trabant, and decided he wanted one. So, he started searching online. He did locate one for $1,000 a few years ago, but he was committed to helping out his family financially so he decided he couldn’t buy it. Passing up on one of his dream cars, he said, was heartbreaking. He didn’t know if another would come his way.
Then two years ago, he spotted one for $3,000. He had the money in his emergency fund, and decided that “I was young. I might as well get something I’ll enjoy.”
The car was owned by a former mayor of a city in East Germany, who had emigrated to Great Britain. But as soon as he arrived he put the car in storage, where it remained until it was shipped to a dock in Maryland where Vassil-Horse picked it up.
“It’s in better condition than most Trabis on the road,” he said. It even has some features others don’t. Notably it has a dipstick for the gas tank, so he can check how much gas he has.
He has considered putting in a gas gauge when he has the money. It would be a difficult job, including removing the gas tank, “so when you cut and weld, it doesn’t kill you.”
Vassil-Horse started learning about automotive repairs at 14 from his father. “My dad is talented with mechanical skills, so he helped me.”
His interest in auto work is related to his interest in science. “I have the mind of a researcher,” he said. “When cars broke down, I couldn’t afford to pay someone to repair it for me so I’d grab the manual.” Starting with the basics he dug into the intricacies until he knew the name of every part.
He has a basic wrench set and a torque wrench he picked up on sale. He carries those tools in the trunk of his long-distance ride, a 1984 Pontiac Fiero.
With the Fiero’s fuel efficiency – he said it gets more than 50 mph on the highway – it’s a favorite car for the rest of the family. Both his brothers and his sister each own one.
Vassil-Horse also has a 1969 Mustang, which is “a money sink,” that he has been able to work on since he was 18.
And then there’s his motorcycle a 1970 Norton 750 Commando, a British bike that once belonged to his father.
But it’s not quite a hand-me-down. His father bought the bike when he was stationed overseas, and brought it back to the States, only to eventually sell it. But he never forgot it, and after a number of years he and his son tracked it down. It was worse for wear, but that did not deter Vassil-Horse. It was another project.
For all his love of all things automotive, he’s not a fan of car shows.
They tend to be about who has spent the most, and who knows more arcana about their vehicles. “You talk to a lot of car dudes at a car show and they’re full of details and background. That’s cool but I live a hectic life. I can’t be bothered by that.”
That’s also where he would meet someone with a vintage Corvette – one of his dad’s dream cars that’s most likely out of reach – and be told the owner never drives it.
“I buy my cars with every intention of driving them. I don’t want to sock them away,” he said.
A person never knows what lies in store. They could get critically ill, and lose their ability to drive.
Vassil-Horse wants to make sure he enjoys his vehicles
“because life has a whole lot of plans for you.”
