Word: trabants
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...revolution and liberty. First the car ferried cheering, champagne-drinking East German refugees to the West. Then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, joyous citizens of the Democratic Republic stuffed themselves into their Trabis and poured through border crossings for shopping sprees and dreams of reunification. The Trabant became the car a country rode to freedom. By all rights, it should be hailed as the little engine that could. But it really can't. In this fable, the ugly duckling finds love but stays ugly...
Once in the West, East Germans don't really want to hold on to their old cars. Of the 2,413 Trabis registered in West Germany, most are expected to be ditched for Volkswagens even as the drivers dream of Mercedes-Benz, Audis, BMWs and Porsches. And while Trabants account for less than 0.5% of the passenger cars in the Federal Republic, they have caused a stir. "Almost every day we get letters of complaint," says Bonn Environment Minister Klaus Topfer. "The Trabant is a nuisance...
...certainly isn't easy being a Trabi. Trabant jokes are now a national pastime in the Federal Republic, just as they have been in East Germany for decades. Some are flattering. "Why did Erich Honecker refuse to drive a Trabant? Because the brakes kept pulling to the West." But others simply pick on the helpless little car's shortcomings. "Why is the Trabant the world's quietest car to drive? Because your knees cover your ears...
...awkwardness, the Trabant has aroused protective instincts in West Germany. Auto Zeitung magazine gave the Trabi honorary top billing in its 1989 test results, praising the car's "respect for the people who must live with it." A Trabi graced the centerfold of Autobild's "Best Autos of 1989" edition. The Frankfurter Allgemeine-Zeitung even compared the Trabant with the Porsche Carrera. Both, said the paper kindly, are "useful as getaway cars," but the Trabi has twice the Carrera's trunk space...
Soon, however, the Trabant that Germans both love and hate may be no more. In 1990 East Germany plans to begin producing Trabants fitted with cleaner, four-cylinder engines manufactured under a 1984 contract with Volkswagen. VW is also negotiating a joint venture to develop a successor to the Trabi...