The Incredible Story of the Trabant - East Germany Car Cold War Documentary 2022

"How do you double a Trabant's value? - add a full tank." Just one of the jokes that have come to symbolise most people's views of the Sachsenring Trabant, but the true history is far, far different.
In this documentary, we look at how integral the Berlin Wall's creation and fall was to the success and ultimate demise of the Trabant autmobile.
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Credit for footage and photos to:
- AP
- • Germany after the War,...
- • Documentary - The lost...
- • GERMANY - BERLIN WALL ...
- • The building of the Be...
- • Trabi Produktion Zwickau
- • Video
- • Trabant Quality Control
- • 50 Jahre Trabant - unv...
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Audio Credit
- • Downfall (Music Video)...
- tunetank.com/t...
- tunetank.com/t...
- tunetank.com/t...
- tunetank.com/t...
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With help to the IFA Club for Eastern Bloc Vehicles who assisted in historical accuracy.
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KLASSIC GARAGE
klassicgarage
LIKE / COMMENT / SUBSCRIBE for more Trabant content and project builds.
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Project created using creative commons, no infringment intended. Please contact us if we have credited you incorrectly.

[@frankbertuzzi4782]

I did the Trabi Safari in May 2018. It was so much fun. I will say though, our Trabant 601 was a former Nationale Volksarmee car (which was very special for us as we were the only Americans on the tour that day), and ours had a bad alternator and it broke down 5-6 times on the tour. We ended up having to bump-start it by giving the damn thing a good push. I probably inhaled more toxic "fumes" that day than any other time in my life. It was well worth it though, I will 100% be doing it again

[@aliabdallah102]

Sir, a broken trabant is it's default state.

[@frankbertuzzi4782]

@@aliabdallah102 you are NOT wrong my friend!

[@ZsoltPal23092011]

Thank you for the video - it was interesting to see life again as it was in my childhood. When my family managed to buy one back in the ;ate 80s, we felt so proud - and a few weeks later the rich cousin showed up in his Peugeot 309. I was awe stricken by the differencies between the two cars - the philosophy, the build quality, the feel of the cars.. I still remember the sound of the 309's indicator - and how even that little sound managed to show us the difference between East and West. Never felt any good riding in the Trabi after experiencing the luxury of the 309. We owned a Wartburg, a Barkas, a Zsiguli after that Trabi and none managed to come even close to the 309. This is how I remember our Trabi - something that was incredibly hard to get, but then you regretted owning it, as it reminded you how far we are behind the rest of the world.

[@M1422-o7r]

When you are not loving a trabant, you are not worth to own it.

[@wanderschlosser1857]

18 years is a bit much, in reality it was 10-14 years dependent on version, availability and possible export demands. That still is extremely long, so why that exaggeration? Click bait?

[@enzovillegas1116]

I'm from Argentina and owning a Trabi is one of my dreams, I love it. Sadly it's almost impossible due to distance

[@uzaiyaro]

How have you only got 35 subscribers? This was pretty damn good! I sincerely wish you the best with your channel.

[@Arltratlo]

because millions are happy that this piece of commie crap is gone!

[@piercehawke8021]

Trabant; the 1990-91 models received a VW Polo platform, which IMHO made for a clean running and still economical car.

[@mannequinfukr]

Because of the waiting list. I imagine there's people technically still on that waiting list

[@tarik6990]

The average waiting time was about 15 years or so so it's highly unlikely anyone is still on the waiting list.

[@Arltratlo]

Germany is reunited for over 30 years... so your comment is really useless!

[@ZsoltPal23092011]

might be :)

[@Innochamp]

Nice video and homage to the Trabi. Own one 😌

[@fallout0624]

The Trabant could have been a better car if they had the incentive to make 5things like a gas gauge a normal feature (same with a 4 stroke engine). The Trabant fits in with that phase of car design that died soon after WW2.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

4 stroke engines were never used in the Eastern block. They used 2 stroke engines because they're far more fuel efficient, but because they burn oil they're not particularly environmentally friendly. The car was designed to be as cheap as possible to produce while using a minimum of resources, not to be a good car people would actually want if they were given a choice

[@fallout0624]

@@thesteelrodent1796 lots if Soviet cars were made with 4 stroke engines, the Volga and Lada being prime examples

[@stefanmzenhardt2891]

Ther is a mistake the wartburg was not the 1.3 but the 353

[@andrejmucic5003]

And post War English cars were innovative as fuck?

[@Arltratlo]

one reason barley anyone is left!

[@thelivingroombusker2013]

I really enjoyed that

[@mrdaykurutakuchannel]

If any of you watched Spy x Family, you'll be familiar with this!

[@trabi_winni5509]

Please german subtitle !

[@klassicgarage]

Hi I'll add it!

[@eows6125]

there was a blue trabant in despicable me 2.

[@buffymcmuffin5361]

Great example of Socialism.

[@stanojevicnatasa2514]

Grew up in Yugoslavia, riding in a Trabant, learned to drive in a Trabant and forever in love with a Trabant.

[@freedomformen2548]

Wonderfull video 👍 I always loved the Trabant. My love for this amazing little car starded in 1991 with the U2 album 'Achtung baby ' ♥️

[@McElroysMotors]

As a Trabant owner in the USA, I could watch this for days. Well done!

[@neilfoster9508]

I am from the UK, and I own a 1988 Trabant P601s Kombi (estate). Mine was driven from Bulgaria to the UK in September 2020, and I bought it from a car dealer in December 2020. Yes it's a slow, noisey, smokey piece of crap, but I didn't buy it to be cool and sophisticated, it's a funky little car and I will never sell it.

[@Arltratlo]

its the only new car you can get right now, after PM Truss will start a trade war with the EU this summer, leaving a broken England behind, while Scotland and Wales will rejoin the EU, and NI the RoI, too!

[@robontube12]

You don't want to have a crash in that thing, believe me!

[@wokeeye6441]

When I saw that quote from Milton Friedman, my hopes of an objective look at the cold war flew out the window. Thanks but no thanks. Leave that radical laissez faire propagandist out of this!!!

[@huudamu1884]

I WISHD ID HAD SOME DAY GREEN TRABANT 601 AND WHITE 353 I WOULD LOVE TO PAINT TRABANT AND LADA

[@bd3531]

Dude, good footage but that tragic diction...

[@abdulrahmanal-falah1738]

who sees this is a GOAT

[@TheySchlendrian]

This is supposed to be a Car. You mostly made a Capitalist Propaganda Video.

[@beardsntools]

Great example of Socialism /s

[@diegosilang4823]

Because capitalist cars are BETTER.

[@TheySchlendrian]

@@diegosilang4823 Shows where capitalist priorities are, mass produced 4 seaters, mostly used by 1 person to spew out more pollution, meanwhile China has the fastest electric Train on the Planet. Niether did everyone in GDR need a Car, Trainnetworks were vastly connected, while the West German Autobahn is stuck in trafficjams.

[@TheySchlendrian]

@Maxx B. quite to the contrary my parents lived in the GDR, the "backwardness" came with the wests annexation. Constitutional right to work and a home, free education and healthcare, Gender equality, homosexual rights, all gone over night in the 90s. You talk about backwardness without knowing the progress that socialism has brought.

[@TheySchlendrian]

@Maxx B. Comparing the 90s vs the 80s in the GDR, again only prooves my point, mass unemployment and it's product being poverty was a result of capitalist privatization, unemployment before the annexation was unknown to the people. The Stasi was a result of a cold war and of 2 opposing German States, measures for security had to be taken on both sides, after all Berlin was the literal Spy Capital of the world. You can't be this naive to think capitalism doesn't spy on people, especially in the age of the internet, Stasi agents would lick their fingers on the amount of mass surveillance social media provides. Neither did the state indoctrinate children, the free German youth was for example a organization to give the youth a direct voice in Parliament, Wich is a feature of socialist democracy, as it considers the entire spectrum of society, meanwhile in Capitalist democracy only the rich are represented.

[@henryc5534]

Who else came here for the Trabi and not capitalist propaganda?

[@diegosilang4823]

I had enough of socialists propaganda from Hollywood, CNN etc.

[@American-Motors-Corporation]

@Maxx B. well really the western governments, used socialism in Europe passing out money via the marshal plan! Plus west Germany was still a mixed system in large part socialist via a welfare state with a free limited free market! So go wave the flag around some more because it turns out the west yes the USA is quite the exporter of socialism to Germany and throughout Europe!

[@American-Motors-Corporation]

@Maxx B. lol it's been there way before Biden! He's a moron but so is everyone who thinks this new because of him!