Author : Brenda Williams
It was the people s car but the people supposedly hated it It smelled awful, emitted blue smoke and made horrible noises It was listed in Time as one of the worst cars of all time Time also called it the car that gave communism a bad name, although one wonders if communism had a good name to begin with, especially during the Stalinist era when it was developed The car in question was the Trabant, nicknamed the Trabi
First designed to be a motorcycle, the Trabant was converted to a car in the final stages of incubation It would fulfill the Stalinist dream of a people s car and be the Communist response to the Volkswagen
The Trabant body was a masterpiece of recycling It was constructed of Duroplast, a type of plastic manufactured from various recycled materials such as wool, cotton waste, and phenol resins from the dye industry The manufacturing process however, was always labor intensive and East Germany had to import guest workers from Vietnam to staff their production facility
The first Trabant manufactured, the P50, was equipped with a small, lightweight, two cylinder, two stroke engine with a maximum speed of 65 mph The P 50 was followed by the P 60, which had a 25 hp engine
Then in 1964, the engine was upgraded again Some modifications were also made to the electrical system and the interior The result was the Trabant 601, which continued in production until 1991 when the company ceased operations
The blue smoke, which streamed out of the exhaust pipe, was loaded with air pollutants And due to the fact it was a two stroke engine, the exhaust had a most unpleasant odor that resembled burnt oil The engine was also extremely noisy And like Ford s famous Model T, customers had no choice of color
In spite of its faults, however, the Trabant did appeal to certain people, especially the film and music industry
It was a car star in the German film Go, Trabi, Go in which an East German family tours Europe in a Trabant It appeared once again in Goodbye, Lenin, a film about the fall of the Berlin Wall
Another film, Driving Me Crazy was about the development and theft of a Trabant that could be fueled by turnips, instead of gasoline And the 1996 Czech film, Kolja, stars a protagonist who is overjoyed at receiving a Trabant
The Trabant also made its mark in the music world The Serbian rock group, Atheist Rap, recorded a song entitled, Blue Trabant U2, another rock group, used Trabants for props on their Zoo IV Tour These now hang from the ceiling in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Almost four million Trabants were produced before the company folded Today, there are about 52,000 registered Trabants in Germany where it has acquired the status of a cult car A well restored Trabant might sell for the Euro equivalent of almost $21,000 On the net, there are 130 Trabant fan clubs, scattered throughout Germany, Europe and the United States
Moreover, it has now been scheduled for a comeback The German company, IndiKar is developing a new version of the GDR economy car However, there will be a vast difference between the new and the old Although retro styled with a sky blue body and white roof, the New Trabi will comply with European safety and emission standards The New Trabi is scheduled for introduction to the public at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show
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