Crossing the United States in five months in a 1968 Trabant 601 Kombi, with a budget of barely a few dozen dollars per day and no defined itinerary. That was the bet a young Dutch couple accepted by shipping their own car rather than renting an anonymous SUV. In a land of giant pickups and XXL motorhomes, their tiny two-stroke break‑away from the former East Germany stacked up tens of thousands of miles across deserts, mountains, and the Pacific Ocean. An adventure plotted to the millimeter on the mechanical side, but wonderfully loose on the map—exactly the kind of project that makes you want to picture yourself behind the wheel.
At the heart of this journey is Max ter Denge, born in 1998, a bus driver in Losser, in the Twente region, and his partner Jessica. Since his first visit to the other side of the Atlantic, the Dutchman caught the America bug. His 1968 Trabant 601 Kombi, bought for €1,500 in 2024, was then just a weary little wagon. It would become the travel companion for a five‑month coast‑to‑coast odyssey, according to AutoWeek.
Preparing a Trabant 601 Kombi to cross the United States
To make this project feasible, Max ter Denge did not rely on a rental RV or a plush crate. He turned to a British company capable of shipping his Trabant to the United States by sea. “In England, there was a company that could ship the car to Los Angeles. The round trip cost about €5,000. In the end, it was far cheaper than renting a car for five months. I drove the Trabant in January 2025 to Southampton and, from there, it headed for America on a roll‑on/roll‑off ship. It’s basically a huge floating parking lot: the cars are simply driven aboard. I found it quite stressful to leave the Trabant there, with the key still in the ignition. From the port, I walked thirteen kilometers back to the airport. I started to wonder whether American port workers would know how to start this Trabant and whether the car would roll off the ship in Los Angeles without any trouble. Fortunately, everything went smoothly,” recounts Max ter Denge. For a hobbyist who had already spent a year of evenings and weekends making the two‑stroke reliable, that RoRo crossing marked the true start of the journey.
Handing over his little runabout to the port staff, Max ter Denge walked back to the airport, head full of questions. Would the Kombi start at the first turn of the key after crossing the ocean? Would it come off the ship in sunny California without trouble? When he found the car again on the dock, intact and ready to start, the couple could finally focus on the essential task: drive, again and again, for five months.
Living five months in a Trabant in the United States on a $35-a-day budget
From Los Angeles, Max ter Denge and Jessica piled on the miles across the vastness of America, bound only by their modest daily budget. “We logged more than 25,000 kilometers with the Kombi. Our budget was around $35 (about €32) per day, so we slept often in the car on free campgrounds. Sometimes we could also crash in the yard of locals. We ran into an old veteran who had become a pacifist hippie. He fed us what grew on his own land and I even fixed his lawn mower. In return, we helped each other. The most beautiful places we found were off the beaten path. The vistas in Nevada, the salt flats in Utah, and the wilderness of Oregon were magnificent. In Washington State, we did a whale‑watching trip. It was truly great and that’s the only thing we seriously spent money on,” recalls Max ter Denge. At this pace, the tiny East‑German car transformed into a minimalist motorhome, always ready to roll toward the next trail or viewpoint.
On the road, the car drew every eye. A square little wagon with a two‑stroke engine, almost unknown to most Americans, among SUVs and oversized pickups: the scene repeated at every gas station. “We generated a lot of interest. People absolutely wanted to know what car it was. On the hood, I stuck a Mercedes‑Benz badge and explained that it was a first‑generation S‑Class. The Americans believed it! Along the road, we crossed many tourists in enormous RVs. With the rental prices for those RVs, they burned through a budget that would barely cover Jessica and me traveling for five months. The Trabant almost always ran perfectly. For safety, I had brought from home a full ignition system, a few coils, and two head gaskets. I had to replace the ignition once along the way, plus a head gasket. Other than that, not a single bulb burned out,” he says with a laugh. Between conversations, he keeps a wary eye on the mechanicals, but his precautions pay off: the little two‑stroke proves that serious preparation can turn an icon of the East into a true long‑haul road warrior.
