Eigenbau of the month: October 2023This month's Eigenbau was just solved as a puzzle a few days ago:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2017-46/fw-470As I have found a lot of recent pictures of the still existing car I thought it would be fine to have it featured here.
I'll start with a translation of the article shown in the puzzle thread:
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A car called RobrahnThe ingenious tinkerings of a new citizen
For one and a half months the Opel Robrahn has been running in Krefeld - the only one in the automotive world. Its owner is its builder as well: Erwin Robrahn, aged 65, expatriated from the GDR in September of this year, a trained construction and art locksmith with almost brilliant abilities.
The TÜV (German technical inspection association) was puzzled. A 1.5 tons heavy vehicle, like it never has been in a catalogue and never will be, a car without a type label. The engineers had that changed first. And so there is now a standardized label in the huge engine compartment: 'Opel Robrahn'.
In the beginning there was a 1953 Opel Kapitän. All that is left from it now is the front axle: the spare parts shortage in the "workers' and farmers' country" makes you inventive. For 25 years Erwin Robrahn has been tinkering in his spare time - his own workshop was only 500 meters "on the other side" near Lübeck. Seven makes from tgree countries had to serve for creating this home-built "battleship". Engine and gearbox are new and come from a Moskvitch. A short time before his removal Erwin Robrahn invested 6,100 GDR Mark in his car. The 1.5 liter engine with overhead camshaft (!) turns out 75 hp and accelerates the car up to 125 km/h. "A requirement for that is of course Western Super gazoline", the owner says. The radiator grille is a shining chrome symbiosis of Opel, BMW and Trabant parts., the bumpers come from a Russian Volga. Headlights and taillights come from the East German Wartburg. The only stock parts of the bodywork are the doors from the Soviet Pobieda. The rest is his own quality workmanship made of 1.2 mm thick sheet steel.
Erwin Robrahn followed his son to the Lower Rhine region with a trailer full of spare parts and tools. He found a new home at Ritterstraße 118 where is is now thinking about selling his life's work: "At some point this all has to come to an end." Because the open-minded man from the coast has seen that you can buy almost anything in the West - except for fitting chrome wheelcaps which would suit his car's wheels just fine."
The article must have been from 1980/1981, because the Moskvitch engine was installed in 1980.
The car was for sale right now. Its current owner acquired it in 1982 and drove it until 1998, often with a trailer at its back carrying a prewar car, even all the way down to the Pyrenees. Unfortunately the windscreen was destroyed by vandals.
It seems that the car was sold for 2,850 €.