The Trabant Turns 60 (East German made car)

[TomSea]

Reminds me a bit of the old Ramblers.
Excerpt, photo essay:

The Trabant Turns 60

Sixty years after the first "Trabi" rolled off the assembly line in a cloud of blue smoke, we look at the little plastic car that innovated, stagnated, and was finally rejuvenated.


1 East Germany had a problem -- well, a few problems at the height of the Cold War, but a shortage of raw materials was one of the most pressing. With only a tiny allocation of steel at their disposal, engineers tasked with creating a "people's car" for the Eastern Bloc country had to think outside the box.


3   The Trabant featured a steel unibody frame, with Duroplast panels bolted on. Early models also boasted three ashtrays.


5 Beneath the Duroplast panels the car was simple -- simple enough to be rather genius. With just five moving parts, the Trabi's original air-cooled engine, which weighed just 40 kilograms, was child's play to maintain.


7 By the 1960s, milky colored Trabants were becoming ubiquitous in East Germany...

Full article, lots of pictures: https://www.rferl.org/a/trabant-car-turns-sixty/28829496.html

[dfwgator]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYhbQcVoHMs

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The car made out of cardboard.

[DB]

Apparently exactly what millennials want...

[truth_seeker]

And today Leipzig (formerly East Germany) is one of the main factory locations for BMW.

[Frank Cannon]

Who gives a royal eff. No one collects them. They weren't good when they were new. They evoke nothing but misery. If there is something to romanticize about Communism, it wouldn't be this shit car. It would be the AK.

Here is the worlds worst car with the worlds worst band....

[musiclady]

I'll never forget being in East Germany in 1968.......  I saw lots of those cars.....

And bombed out buildings from WWII, and desolate, unused farmland, and poverty, and sadness, and hopelessness........

I was young, but that trip turned me into a lifelong capitalist and patriot.

[Frank Cannon]

I'll never forget being in East Germany in 1968.......  I saw lots of those cars.....

And bombed out buildings from WWII, and desolate, unused farmland, and poverty, and sadness, and hopelessness........

I was young, but that trip turned me into a lifelong capitalist and patriot.

Is that you Erich Honecker?

[dfwgator]

Is that you Erich Honecker?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8vDQaAYaQg

[Frank Cannon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8vDQaAYaQg

LOL. That's a great movie to read.

[Idiot]

When I visited my brother and his wife who were in Budapest, Hungary....where they taught at a University there...  Some friends of theirs took us on a lengthy trip in their Trabant.  Four of us were crammed into that thing.  It basically sounded like a lawnmower engine when it ran.  Their friend had a device to remove the steering wheel and would take it in the house, to keep the car from getting stolen. 

It got us to where we were going, but certainly a death trap.