Trabantastic

May 12, 2007

I sat in a Trabant yesterday. I don't expect you to be thrilled but it's something that I've always fancied so I was pleased to give it a go.

The Trabant was that funny, boxy car you saw so much at the fall of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of life in East Germany. I'd assumed they had vanished quickly afterwards, through unreliability or as symbols of an era which many were pleased to see go. But, no, the Trabby is a daily sight in Hungary.

What I want to know is whether they are driven by people who don't have the money to buy something better or simply don't care, or if they have become chic, perhaps even favoured by collectors.

I can't think chic can be the biggest factor. Too many Trabants are in too shabby a state, whereas collectors like to restore them to how they were as new. I suppose Trabants originally had a glossy finish but the paint is now dull and faded, giving most Trabants the air of a little car delivering dust .

The one I sat in was in that state. And what was it like? Well, it was tiny, of course, although I'd guess it wasn't much tinier

Steph takes the wheel - with care because a good tug would have snapped it.

...and this is what it looked like inside. Apparently there was also a "de luxe" version: the ads showed a smart couple in evening dress being showed to their Trabant by a hotel commissionaire.

than my first car, a three-speed Ford Popular which used as much oil as petrol and on which the windscreen wipers were driven by air pressure, or maybe lack of pressure, generated by the engine.

The speedometer of "my" Trabant went up to 120. That may have been optimistic. I doubt it would have done more than around 90, maybe then only with a run-up, and the chance of breaking the speed limit was therefore finite.

The interior was less glamorous than on my old Ford. The Popular had pretend-leather upholstery. The Trabant's felt as though it had been made of old carpet. The parcel shelf beneath the dashboard was of, I swear it, some form of compressed cardboard.

But... the Trabant is still going. My Ford Pop failed its fit-for-the-road test a year after I bought it (it cost more to insure than to buy) and my last sight was of its being towed away to be scrapped.

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