Trabant: The Rise and Fall of East Germany's People's Car - Cold War

Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on Trabant, East Germany's People's car, possibly the worst automobile in history.
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#coldwar #EastGermany #Trabant #DGR #DDR #car

[@andreaslermen2008]

The famous joke from Western Germany: A billionaire have heard, that it took more then 10 years to get a Trabant. So he wrote a letter to Honecker, that he want to buy one. The SED thought. this is a great way to promote their car, so they send him the next one finished. A week later they got a letter "I'm so thankful, that you send me a plastic model of the car, I can't wait to get a real one". In the DDR Museum in Berlin is a Trabant you can sit in.

[@m0llux]

What do you call a Trabant on a hill? A miracle.

[@MrAlsachti]

What do you call ten Trabants on a hill? A factory.

[@krisstopher8259]

or science fiction lmao

[@MIMALECKIPL]

Or rather strong back and legs of driver and passengers.

[@realLsf]

How do double the value of a Trabant? Fill it with petrol

[@SgtPotShot]

What's the difference between a coffin & a Trabant? You order a coffin after someone is dead. You order a Trabant aftet someone is born.

[@Veritas.0]

The prime intersection of dark humor is German humor plus Iron Curtain humor making the bleakest of dark jokes.

[@krisstopher8259]

the similarity is that you feel dead inside in both of them, lmao

[@mrlentien5333]

Dad joke

[@crazyviking24]

​@@Veritas.0dark humor is like food in East Germany, not everybody gets it.

[@Neversa]

Both arrive after death

[@Hurricane2k8]

East German here (born shortly after the wall fell though): It's not like this car disappeared within a few years. The Trabant was still somewhat common throughout the 90s. And you could still occasionally, but regularly, see them on the streets in the early to mid 2000s. Nowadays they are truly rare.

[@christophera556]

Thank goodness they are now rare although I haven't ever seen one of these communist era trabants I have heard enough about them a two stroke two cylinder engine flat out at about a hundred and ten kilometres an hour held together with east German produced plastic is enough to say avoid meaning basically a pile of shit they obviously sold because of communist East German market as for the Russian made lada's well a few were sold here in Australia in the late eighties and early nineties and they were well junk .

[@andriandrason1318]

Rarely

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Soviet microdistrict vs USA suburb

[@jarikinnunen1718]

In Finland was nearly all soviet car models except Trabant due its poor reliability. When japanese car came, all soviet cars disappeared back to east, where they had high value.

[@themotorcyclehistorian8099]

There are lots still in Berlin, however these seem to be mostly tourist attractions and not used as ordinary transport. In the UK there is a club for such vehicles and meet ups occasionally however they are very rare to see on the roads and spares are mostly non existing. I have been trying to locate a starter motor for my late model 601 but must now send off to get one from Germany.

[@ArcturusMinsk]

Heard about how Trabant won a race? There was a massive sewage leak on the track, all the cars got stuck except the Trabant. When asked how this happened the driver simply replied "shit doesn't sink in shit"

[@no1DdC]

There are so many jokes about this car: How to you double the value of a Trabant? Fill it up. How do you quadruple it? Put a banana in the trunk. [Bananas and other exotic fruit were near unobtainable in East Germany.] Why is the rear window heated? So that you have warm hands when you push it. What's the top speed of a Trabant? Lower than that of the tow truck it's on. What do you use to measure the acceleration of a Trabant? A calendar. Why is it called the 601? 600 ordered and one received it. Why didn't the Trabant move from the stop light? Because one of its tires was stuck to a gum. How do you recognize a Trabant Sport? By the sports shoes in the trunk.

[@JanoTuotanto]

@@no1DdC They had chewing gum in DDR?

[@no1DdC]

@@JanoTuotanto You are joking, but there was a single factory in the country producing chewing gum, financed by a West-German firm for export into West Germany. They wanted to benefit from the cheap labor. It was a state secret, but eventually came to light. Chewing gum was pretty much only available through smugglers or in Intershops for foreign currency, so it was kind of a prestigious luxury good. Given the limited availability, I suspect that the joke only came to being either after reunification or in the West.

[@Artanis99]

Not as unlikely as it seems. Funny thing about Trabi was that it could be easily modified to fit Wartburg engine with more than double the power and some could be moded even further to fit even stronger import engines. Combine it with Trabi being very lightweight and you get quite a speedy car.

[@PappyGunn]

Guy goes to Trabant office, fills out all the forms, pays for the car. Dealer tells him “come back in 18 years to pick it up”. Guys asks “morning or afternoon?” Dealer aks what difference does it make? Guy says “the plumber is coming in the morning...”

[@fred-a-stair]

Classic Ronald Reagan. He used to tell this at every opportunity. Great man

[@LukeVilent]

In USSR, this was told about the Zaporozhets.

[@peterlimburg3872]

I bought one of these for 125 DM in 1992 in Berlin and drove it back to Holland. It was a fun little car for me as a poor student.

[@DaveSCameron]

But rubbish yes? Just like the Skoda Estelle etc. Absolutely rubbish and degenerate versions of 1930s automobiles.. 😂

[@user-wj5gj9ld8b]

Lucky man in want one 2

[@drdewott9154]

Honestly good on you back then. Simple, quirky, and affordable. Plus I can respect people who if they get a car go for something really basic if quirky like this. I don't really like cars being status symbols like they've so often become now. Having a quirky old school trabi just seems like the better option, especially if on a budget anyway.

[@DaveSCameron]

@@drdewott9154 overheated after 10 miles 😂😂

[@angusclark8330]

​​@@DaveSCameronThe worst mistake I ever made was to fail to buy a Skoda which had been modified by a female art student in Edinburgh. She was sick of being flipped off by tossers in their BMWs and Audis at traffic lights, and struck back by having a blown - if that's the term - engine, gearbox wheels (with 8" tyres on the rear)- oh and a 200W/ channel quad system, so she could shut them up even when she was standing at the lights. Being an artist, she also had the cunning plan of devising a unique colour which didn't have a name, a sort of browny grey purplish glum that probably still doesn't have a Pantone name. The part one test drive - without me at the wheel - was terrifying; the part two - with me allegedly in control - was worse; I nearly shat myself, no kidding. I drove my sad, normy Nissan away, knowing even then that if I could tame that Beast, I could call myself a driver. I have regretted not buying that car ever since, especially as the Nissan was T- boned by a bus three weeks later.

[@m0llux]

How many people do you need to build a Trabant? Two. One who folds, one who glues.

[@no1DdC]

Why is it painted? So that it doesn't dissolve in the rain.

[@bioLarzen]

Haha, I was just about dropping in this same joke - good thing I checked first :)

[@christophscholz]

I was a graduate student at the Braunschweig institute of technology in Germany when the Wall fell in 1989. Braunschweig is about 30 miles west of the former border with East Germany. After the fall of the wall, the town was flooded with Trabis. People typically came across the border to shop during the day and returned at night. For a few months, it was impossible to find oranges or bananas in Braunschweig. Trabants that broke down were often abandoned on the side of the road. It was an incredible privilege to experience this historic event firsthand.

[@oneproudbrowncoat]

I was once told that Trabis were sometimes called 'exchange students', since you'd ride one until it got you across the border, and then abandon it. I've never even been to Germany, so I have no idea if the story was true.

[@bsadewitz]

God, at least that era bequeathed to us some top-flight gallows humor.

[@PatrickLeeRyan]

I was in Germany then too. :) I remember seeing all these cars, and the fact that they all seemed had a lot of knickknacks piled by their back window. Did you notice that too?

[@christophscholz]

⁠​⁠@@PatrickLeeRyanno I didn’t notice that. But in the 80s our middle school class went a trip into the DDR. One evening, we snuck away from our official tour guide (most certainly a Stasi associate) and after a few beers a local gave us a ride in his Trabi. 120 km/h (80 mph) down a country road full of potholes in a motorized cardboard box, that was quite an experience! At this time people took good care of their cars. Everybody had plenty of money, you just couldn’t buy anything. Spare parts, spark plugs, etc., this all had to be bartered and people were shockingly open about that fact, they called it ‘Mangelwirtschaft’.

[@mikethespike7579]

I was also a student in Braunschweig at that time. I heard in the radio that the wall had fallen and since I had a girlfriend in Berlin decided to drive over there and see for myself. I lived on the Kennedy-Platz, it was about one in the morning, the town was asleep and quiet. I was just getting into my car when I heard a strange sound in the distance getting louder. And then a single lone Trabant entered the square and drove around in circles for about 10 minutes before disappearing again. I'd just witnessed the first Trabant in Braunschweig. BTW, later on that day I was one of the many to stand on the wall.

[@Benjamin-ji4gx]

As someone that lives in east Germany, I must say you really notice the sentimentality that a lot of people have for these cars. Many people are frustrated, that modern cars are so difficult to work on. You need a mechanic for almost everything. People seem to always refer to the ease of maintaining the Trabant in those situations. It’s reliability is also a Topic of discussion very often. That is the reason you still see them on the road frequently. 🇩🇪

[@angusclark8330]

I couldn't agree more. It's the same in the UK. Oh, and it wasn't very long ago that VW, Opel and Mercedes wanted it to be illegal for a vehicle owner to even open the bonnet/ hood of their own vehicle, even to refill the windscreen wiper reservoir ! Why? Safety, of course, or, in translation " our dealers are dying on their arses and need some source of income besides car sales." Hence, locked bonnets/ hoods with keys to open them only at the dealership you bought from, so even if you drive a Skoda, produced by a VAG company, you have to find a Skoda agency because VW, Seat and Audi dealers won't have the key... by European law.

[@RW-nr6bh]

​@@angusclark8330 Locked car bonnets? EU law? Please link me to the source. I have a new car and live in the EU. It has a bonnet release lever.

[@angusclark8330]

@@RW-nr6bh This was a proposed law about fifteen years ago. It was well on the way to being adopted and was backed by German manufacturers, particularly VW. The reaction against it led to it being shelved. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

[@ulfosterberg9116]

​@@angusclark8330perhaps boris Johnson is your sorse?

[@angusclark8330]

@@ulfosterberg9116 No, it was in The Observer, a left- wing Sunday newspaper that's always been as pro Europe as you can get. They were for the idea. I wouldn't trust Boris Johnson as far as I can throw him since he married his current wife, the eco- warrior.

[@ygma1460]

My grandfather's sister married a man from (West) Berlin. She remembers the unification time and it mostly went well, even the East and West German police force combination. In the beginning, police car patrol consisted of one former western and one former eastern police, in order for them to get to know each other. They got along fine, only issue was that the western officers had a distaste to be assigned with a eastern officer's patrol car, tge Trabant.

[@no1DdC]

I bet the East German officers loved it the other way around though. Must have been fun for the police to weed out all those Stasi informers and party members in their own ranks. If it was anything like the army, almost nobody remained in the end.

[@rnascak]

I was stationed in West Berlin from 1983 - 1990. As much as I despised those blue smoke belching, chainsaw sounding, rolling roadblocks on the Allied Forces authorized route to Helmstedt, I can't recall a more joyous encounter with countless Trabbies than when I and my family stood at Checkpoint Charlie on the night of 9 Nov 1989 - Mauerfall.

[@MultiMusicbuff]

I still remember visiting East Germany from West Germany back in 1977.My cousin picked me up in a Trabant.I felt like a carrot in a blender.The seats were just one notch up from a lawnchair and the severe potholes in the road didn't help.

[@nickfifteen]

I was trying to imagine what it would be like to ride in one... your description absolutely helped me. It seems like the Trabant was a golf cart with doors and bigger wheels.

[@yanitsvetanov1162]

@@nickfifteen Back in the days of communism in Bulgaria (before 1989) I took a ride once in one of these in the boot 🤣 - Trabant 601 kombi. We were invited to a wedding and because my father with our Lada 2101 had to drive the bride and the groom, my mother and I had to find a space in some other cars. I went to my friend's Trabi. Unfortunately for the two of us his father was selected to drive the wedding cake and there wasn't much space on the rear seat, so his father told us ''you two get in the boot'' 😁. It was fun, something to remember and talk about!

[@MultiMusicbuff]

@@nickfifteen you absolutely right.A VW Beetle seemed like riding in a Rolls Royce compared to the Trabant.

[@TWINGOMANIA]

​@@MultiMusicbuffThat is absolutly not true.

[@MultiMusicbuff]

@@TWINGOMANIA sorry but it is.

[@bikkiikun]

In the past, many cars (even in the west) came with a very detailed "Owner's Manual" that enabled you to repair or even fabricate parts for it.

[@bigsarge2085]

As a car guy and a student of history, this is a fascinating story.

[@SeedSnatcher]

I recommend the game Jalopy on PC. You drive a 601 from East Germany to Turkey and it breaks down constantly. Very comfortable experience that I think captures how hobbyists keeping these things alive feel.

[@krisstopher8259]

sounds like my life lol

[@1230james]

I played Jalopy during the early access. Quaint little game for what I think is a quaint little car. I was born too late and too far away to witness anything related to the Trabant until a friend showed me the game, but I found the whole ordeal fascinating. 10/10 great game if you just wanna sit down and unwind by zoning out and cursing every time you need to replace a tire

[@oohhboy-funhouse]

It was ok once you pimped it out. You undo all the upgrades by pulling engines from salvaged Trabant's in the trunk, next to the roadside wine and flat tire(s). Creepy uncle on that first play through.

[@Pikaling3408]

As a West Berliner born in 1989 during my childhood years I seen those Trabants around after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[@Bondrewd_TheNovel]

I'm from Hungary, and even back to the early 2000's not the Trabant, but the Lada was very popular (although some of our relatives used to have one). As uncomfortable sometimes these cars could be, they certainly had a charm. The main reasons for this, is that they were undemanding, and you yourself could repair them if the necessary parts were available. Compared to modern cars, where if you have even a minor problem you have to get a mechanic. In the light of this, it is no wonder that these cars are although niche, still popular in their own way especially among the elderly.

[@SmashedGlass]

Ladas are worth a lot of money on the import market to North America. Sometimes rivalling prices we pay for certain Japanese imported cars of the 90s.

[@LetsTakeWalk]

Trabant being terrible is somewhat mitigated that it has become a collector's item, and it would be nice that some of them survive.

[@LukeVilent]

In 90's Russia, there was a series of jokes about Trabi's USSR counterpart: the Zaporozhets. It always started with a New Russian (i.e. mafia) on a Mercedes hitting a Zaporozhets on a crossing, the New Russian jumping out of the Mercedes, hitting at the Zap's window and demanding a ransom for the damage to his car, starting with "Nu ty popal!" (You're in trouble). With the time, though, the Zaps were becoming ever rarer, and there came the final joke in the series. A Maibach hits a Zap on the crossroad. A Zap's door opens, a man comes out, hits the Maibach's window. "Hey dude! D'you know what you've just done? This Zap is a collector's model, every screw is bought on an auction, with genuine factory defects. Nu ty popal!"

[@ghostcat5303]

I went for a drive in a trabant around Krakow in 2016. People were beeping at us, one person shouted and asked if we would sell the engine lmao. They definitely have some sentimental value in places.

[@jamesmaxwell4447]

This episode needed 100% more Aging Wheels.

[@ErikHare]

Robert would be excited. But he's always excited.

[@jamesmaxwell4447]

@@ErikHare Haha so very true.

[@alexdhall]

Yasss! My thoughts exactly!

[@JagoHazzard]

I've always found these cars strangely fascinating.

[@natasastanojevic]

In Yugoslavia, we had one when I was a little girl, grandad taught me how to drive in it, actually great car in many ways, especially for someone who does not like electronics and modern technology, as I am.

[@davidhollenshead4892]

Modern cars are techno-garbage with all kinds of features and yet won't last ten years. Most everyone here used to drive Prius Hybrids and most have disappeared within eight years due to not being worth fixing due to the labor required. So now they drive Teslas which require a working touchscreen to operate and are embarrassed that the CEO of Tesla is a White Nationalist / White Supremacist.... And yes, most of modern technology is cheap crap. As for electronics, they don't last decades like the old solid state stereos did, nor sound as good as the earlier tube based stereos did....

[@natasastanojevic]

@@davidhollenshead4892 I have a friend whose father bought brand new Zastava 1300 (Yugoslav licence built Fiat 1300) in 1967 and that car has outlived him, now being driven and preserved by my friend's brother. In Greece, a taxi driver in Thessaloniki put 4.3 million kilometres onto an early 70s Mercedes w114. Family of Yugoslav folk singer Predrag Gojkovic - Cune - is still keeping around his 1963 Opel Rekord, currently at almost a million kilometres on the clock. Recently learned from my connection in trans community that late 60s Ford Taunus p7 V4 that I frequently pass by on my way to work, used to belong to Dr Savo Perovic, who performed the first gender reassignment surgery in Yugoslavia in the 1980s. That car is still in perfect running order with few cosmetic faults over 50+ years. And many such examples, these are just the ones I remember during first coffee lol. Modern cars will never ever ever be as good. And one more thing, they will never become classics. Nobody will be restoring Tesla or Smart or Prius or Renault Kadjar in 35-40 years. Regular family sedan from 1963 is more interesting than super cars from 2023, visually, culturally, technologically....

[@Zerwikaptur]

I remember when I was a very young kid in the mid 90s in Hungary, around Christmas time me and my classmates waited for Santa Claus to arrive to our school. We did not know at that time, that parents and teachers are the ones who dress up as Santa during these occasions and were eager to see Him flying in a sleigh pulled by reindeers. Suddenly somebody shouted 'Its Santa!' and everybody rushed to the window just to get very confused seeing 'Santa Claus' getting out of a Trabant, pulling out his sack from the passenger's seat and coming up to the school gate. Our homeroom teacher saved the day however, telling us that Santa upgraded his method of transportation and now is travelling all over the world in a flying Trabant. :)

[@hankw69]

Great show! You brought back some old memories. I was stationed in Great Britain in the late 80's. A lot of fellow service members bought old, used Polski-Fiat FSOs because they just needed a cheap car for the couple years of the tour. And they got what they paid for 😂. But most of these eastern-block boat anchors did well enough for the work commute and a trip to the pub though. Once again, thanks.

[@oscarbrown263]

My dad still has a trabant, I love driving it

[@shaider1982]

From a smithsonian air and space magazine article on Fighter Wing 73 (probably the only NATO unit that flew MiG29's in active service), they retained the Trabants for use in the air base they are in. The former east german pilots thought the car made the base more homely.

[@martinsriber7760]

Do you know how to double the value of trabant? You fill the tank.

[@SgtPotShot]

How do triple it? Buy a fuel cap! Quadruple it? Put a banana in the seat.

[@michaelturner4457]

Trabant was the right-to-repair poster child.

[@no1DdC]

More like duty to repair, or else.

[@T-41]

Thanks for doing this. It brings back a memory. Quite a few years ago when traveling by car on the autobahn north from the Munich area a small car followed by a blue cloud of smoke came into view ahead. It was traveling quite slow in the right lane being passed by cars going mostly 150-160 km/hr . My west German traveling companion shrugged his shoulders and remarked “ East Germans in their Trabant”.

[@denpobedy7881]

I was there when wall came down. I will never forget those masses of trabis that day. It's great to witness history. PS also a relief to have never used my nuke artillery on GSFG and NVA attackers. Nice to experience peace breaking out for even a little while.

[@whomagoose6897]

My first duty station while a soldier in the US Army was the Berlin Brigade in West Berlin. Since I could have bought the Trabant with American Dollars I could get a custom made Trabant with all amenities, including outside mirrors, AM/FM radio, fully lined interior padding, factory installed heater. All for $900. Could have received the Trabant in less than two weeks. This was 1978. Immediately put on the top of the list. I was told not to do it because I couldn't import that Trabant into the USA. No parts were available in the USA. Plus any actual US Dollars would have been given to the Soviets for use by the KGB. Besides I would had to get West Berlin car insurance at a high cost. I could have gotten an American listed car tag. The American car tags were strictly for military members, dependents, and American civilian workers in Europe. There were plenty of city busses and a U-Bahn subway system so I could go anywhere in West Berlin I could ever go to anyways.

[@rnascak]

6912 ESG, USAF, Marienfelde Ops Site, West Berlin, 1983 - 1990.

[@whomagoose6897]

@@rnascak I was long gone from West Berlin by the time you got to be in West Berlin. I was located at McNair Barracks. Assigned to the 2nd Bn/6th Infantry, Combat Support Company. Battalion heavy mortar Platoon. McNair Barracks is a ghost town now. No one has purchased the land or buildings. I know the entire compound was a factory called Telefunken. Made am/fm radios, transmitters, television sets. Telefunken made items before and during WW-2.

[@iana6713]

The Trabi was a product of its time, and the DDR's politics. As per the design brief, it actually did what it was designed to do - cheapish to run and maintain but hopelessly outdated by the latter years of East Germany. I actually owned one of these in Scotland. Great fun!

[@6thmichcav262]

I remember that one of my German professors called them Trabis.

[@iana6713]

@@6thmichcav262 Yup - Trabi was the most common nickname for them, but there were loads of others. "Rennpappe" for instance - "cardboard racer!"

[@lornarettig3215]

Fully agree. The Trabant is remarkable the way a seal would be remarkable - that it exists against the odds, at all 🙌🏼

[@AC-ih7jc]

Me: Who would want to drive such an old car with a plastic body from a defunct company? Also me: Yep, my Saturn may be old enough to drink, but she still purrs like a kitten!

[@Numba003]

There is something strangely nostalgic about a busted up old car in general lol. As an American, I cannot relate personally in this instance, but the video did remind me of the feeling. Thank you for this video! God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

[@Pituqat]

More efficient western cars keep getting mentioned in the video, but the Trabant's milage clocked at 40mpg/100kmpl. Meanwhile a 1973 VW Beetle only pulled 23mpg while the 1978 Renault 4 managed a 37mpg.

[@no1DdC]

The Beetle was an anomaly compared to most other Western cars by the 1970s, far more dated than the rest.

[@rfvtgbzhn]

@@no1DdC the usual measure in Europe is l/100km. In this measure, 40 mpg would be 5.88l/100km. I don't know of many cars that had less 6l/100km before the 1990s. Maybe the engine of many western cars was more efficient, but not necessary the overall car, as the Trabant was very light-weight. Except of the Trabant 1.1 (which was only produced in small numbers) all models had a curb weight between 620 kg and 660 kg.

[@notroll1279]

​@@no1DdC ...and the early 1970s Beetles were even more inefficient than the earlier ones. Not really suitable as a reference....

[@angusclark8330]

One of the cars I've owned that I most loved was a Lada 1300 Estate. I didn't have it for long, but while I drove it, I chortled with pleasure. On the rotten back roads of Central Scotland , it pitched and rolled like an aircraft carrier in a hurricane, but never gave any sign of wanting to go where it wasn't pointed. It didn't burn oil and its fuel economy was an honest 40mpg ( work it out for yourself, but comparable with a VW Polo or Ford Fiesta - I owned both at around the same time, so I know I'm not BSing myself.). The only fault I couldn't deal with was a stuck cable in the heater control, so the heat was on full all the time. I finally had to dispose of it because it failed its MoT on brakes. That was when I found out the Soviets had made an elementary but common mistake: pairing an iron wheel with an alloy wheel casing. The two had fused and could only be replaced, which made the job Beyond Economic Repair, roughly six times the (second hand) cost of the car. I still think of it fondly, though. Oh, and by the way, was Wartburg like a Party car, that the plebs weren't allowed?

[@user-wx6vz2vn3y]

Beautiful little car much better than those horrible things we call cars today

[@BTScriviner]

Very interesting. I just watched a video from another channel that talked about life in the Soviet Union and mentioned the Lada, all the while mocking the entire subject. The respect you show in all your videos for the subject at hand (even when detailing the negatives) is so refreshing and sets your channel apart from others that cover the same time period.

[@rayceeya8659]

After the wall came down they made a movie called "Go Trabi Go" about an East German Family who takes a road trip yo Italy in there Trabant. It's a comedy and very silly. Also, like reunification, very successful.

[@TheColdWarTV]

It's a fun movie!

[@abraham2174]

Trabbi goes to Hollywood was the bad one 😂

[@RevMikeBlack]

This was quite interesting. Your scripts are well written and authoritative. Thanks for sharing.

[@brokenbridge6316]

Such a curious and interesting topic to talk about

[@michaelporzio7384]

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of the Germany, the former West Germany decided to exchange Ostmarks and Deutchmarks on a one to one basis. There was such a high demand for Volkswagens in the former East Germany that Volkswagens were being stolen in large numbers in the USA and shipped to Eastern Europe. Not a good time to be a VW owner in the USA! I await the Trabant jokes to appear in the comments! Thanks David and TCW team!

[@no1DdC]

I'm not sure if this is true. American VW from the time (and even today) are quite different from cars sold in Germany. They can't be easily used on German roads without an expensive and lengthy conversion to meet legal requirements - and what's the point, given that build quality, materials and equipment were significantly downgraded?

[@michaelporzio7384]

@@no1DdC opposite was true, Euro spec cars at the time had to be heavily modified to be on US roads. Headlights, bumpers and emissions. American spec cars were not a problem in Europe. Many American GIs were driving US spec cars all over Germany in the 1980s, I was one of them!

[@no1DdC]

@@michaelporzio7384 This is partially true. American soldiers receive exemptions for their cars. Everyone else needs their car to have a German type certificate. American VW models, while meeting in some areas stricter US regulations, were still downgraded compared to their European counterparts and different enough that you couldn't just easily ship them over. US imports do exist and always have (recently, it's the Arteon, which isn't officially sold in Germany), but there is so much paperwork involved and so much legal scrutiny that it's unfeasible for stolen cars.

[@michaelporzio7384]

@@no1DdC Trabants certainly did not meet those standards! The West Germans were not happy with Mercedes, Audis and Porsches sharing the autobahn with Trabants puttering along and spewing exhaust. When the Soviet Union fell, Eastern Europe (former Warsaw Pact) became a free for all for a lot of criminal activity. The points you make, however, are well thought out sir!

[@azazazazaz936]

You could still see trabants in the early 2000s in Romania, but they all disappeared by 2010. I remember there’s a GTA mod that let you drive a trabant in game and that was the coolest stuff for me as a kid

[@krisstopher8259]

what GTA? vice city? or several of them?

[@schlirf]

Should have been there when the East Germans came over the former border into Fulda. Sounded like a buzzsaw riot!

[@amerigo88]

The East Germans in those damned Trabbies crowded the autobahn, utterly unable to keep up with the flow of traffic. Most looked like the Beverley Hillbillies with absolutely everything they had crammed into and strapped onto those little death traps.

[@Jwnorton]

I remember the LARIET message saying the DDR government had fallen, and to expect 'increased DDR citizen presence near NATO\US areas' It wasn't a day later, the first Traubies showed up at our kassern gate, driving thru our hosing areas, and with the worse wretches in those gawd-awful vehicles. Our Area CDR sent out a message from USAEUR - provide humanitarian support, but do not allow them into troop or dependents buildings. Or Mess hall was packed feeding them, and they never stopped coming...

[@amerigo88]

@@Jwnorton If I had a retirement check for every time I got called on my landline with "Lariat Highlight." In those days, it often just turned out to be another unit-wide urinalysis. It's best if your 50 - 75 ton tracked armored vehicles are driven by 19 year olds who at least are not under the influence of Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or meth.

[@schlirf]

@@Jwnorton Sort of a peaceful "Fragrep Laurumbell" 😎

[@schlirf]

@@amerigo88 I could tell you about a blowout alert in Schwabach on New Years eve where everyone was either drunk or stoned, but nobody would believe me. 😎

[@GJ-zb3me]

Having one of the very few registered in Australia …they are quirky , noisey but great fun . Where ever I go people go past the exotics to have their picture taken with the Trabbie . But …. Getting parts is a challenge !

[@mangrove]

U2 used them as a part of their stage for the ZooTV tour in 1992 and 1993. Their set designer found some in Berlin and repainted them, using them as part of the stage lighting.

[@LukeSzczepaniak]

Great video, I remember one of these composite wonders slowly rusting away in the parkinglot of our apartment building when I was growing up.

[@thomaslthomas1506]

I've ridden in one. OMG what a piece of .

[@emmcee662]

What a delightful and instructive video 🚙

[@robdgaming]

In former East Berlin near Checkpoint Charlie is Trabi World, where Trabants can be rented to drive around town in. Look for the Trabant stretched limousine on top of the main building.

[@Ketis1985]

Of East Germany cars Wartburg was way more common here in Finland compared to Trabant. What i have been told is that Wartburg was a decent car for the prize. Trabant was the cheapest one.

[@TheColdWarTV]

yes, this is correct. Wartburg was produced in smaller numbers and was of better quality with a better engine, etc. It also cost significantly more than a Trabant

[@generalhorse493]

Top Gear claims that the rally version had to get better brakes which they got from an Austin Maxi. I would not want to be in a Wartburg with a kitty in the road.

[@bikkiikun]

Trabants were certainly noisy and stinky, but not particularly uncomfortable. And they were most certainly not ugly. I mean, they were of course no product of a design bureau out of Milano, but they were pretty and charming. And they were certainly perceived as such, even before they became "cult".

[@ccroy2001]

I liked the part about the social aspect. Growing up most of the men in my family were handy and could fix things. Definitely a class thing. Today I know wealthier people and many men were told by there fathers to be the man that could pay to have things fixed.

[@davidhollenshead4892]

Agreed. When I was a teenager people could fix their house or even their car. Now we have a population that can't even hammer a nail without bending it. And yes I have had people look down on me for still doing some of these tasks... My father is one of those people, so it is no surprise that he would put me down for rebuilding the engine of my car in high school. The reason for this is that they are insecure at not being able to fix a broken light switch. Needless to say, I could understand why my mom filed for divorce when I was five...

[@randomlynamed3353]

It reminds me of a comic I saw frequently at car show when I was a kid. "I had one of those cars when I was young. It was slow, it was underpowered, it handled terribly, it was uncomfortable, and it always had something breaking in it. I wish I had one again, this time I'd take care of it."

[@Mountain_Man_]

Thanks to aging wheel youtube keeps giving me trabant videos and tbh there very interesting and enjoy the videos about them

[@petergeyer7584]

I was out for a walk the other day in my quiet residential neighborhood of what used to be East Berlin. As I was walking by, an older man pulled his Trabant - obviously one that he had cared for for years - out of his driveway onto the street and drove away. A woman passing by exclaimed, “I remember that smell!”

[@Crumbsyums]

Great vid

[@chrishanneman1298]

Having been a long-time viewer of this channel, I have to say that my favorite episodes are about comblock cars. I don't know why. I'm an American, and I haven't owned a car in over 15 years. In the earlier stages of communism, were China, Yugoslavia, or Cuba producing any sort of home produced cars? That may be some good future episodes.

[@iana6713]

Yugoslavia, certainly. Zastava - the maker of the Yugo, had been producing a license-built Fiat 600 for years. Then they came out with the Zastava 101, and after that the Yugo 45 series.

[@angusclark8330]

​@@iana6713A memory in a name: Zastava. Early on, they were reasonably good knock offs of post- war Fiats, but the Yugo name marked a decline they couldn't recover from. Don't get me wrong; the Yugos were so basic Henry Ford would have called them skateboards. This wasn't a result of any inadequacy in the country or their industry, but because the skilled workforce were being hoovered up into the German motor industry, where wages were so much higher. And why was that? Because (West) Germans were brought up to believe that they were superior to other people... All other people. Why does that sound familiar? In my own profession ( archaeology) this meant that W. German graduates wouldn't even apply for digging jobs on any site, because getting their hands dirty was beneath them; they were OWED office jobs in academia, because German. Now consider a car factory...

[@davidhollenshead4892]

@@angusclark8330 The major problem for Zastava was the war. Keep in mind that their best production facility was destroyed by a NATO bombing mission because they were also making weapons. Add the continued political instability and they had little hope of surviving as a company. As for the Yugo being basic, so was my 1986 Ford Escort Pony, and those sold very well...

[@moschidreamer]

I bought a Trabi last 2 weeks, waiting for restauration now. I am happy!

[@pant-hootingchimp8917]

I don't have time to watch this video right now but I'll watch it tomorrow! I just want to say that I LOVE Trabants! Best cars in the world, lol! There's just something about them. I love the look of them, the noise (not the pollution), the cheap way they were made. There's something endearing about them! I've sat in a couple of them (in Berlin and Budapest) but sadly I can't drive so I wasn't able to do the Trabi Safari!

[@peterloohunt]

Fantastic channel! Would love to see you do one about humour under the repressive Soviet regime, eg TV, film, stage, radio etc...

[@coffeecrashed]

I love this little duroplast machine, superior to all.

[@shawnmiller4781]

Of memory serves back in the 1990’s there were a lot of concerns about how to dispose of used tea ants because of the chemical makeup of the plastic body. Apparently it put out a lot of bast chemicals when burned so incineration wasn’t an option

[@arejayseeottawa]

Very fascinating! Now how about a video about the Yugo!

[@PascalGienger]

One little mistake: You had to go to regular check ups to a licensed car repair shop. Getting an appointments was a daunting task. You had to offer bribes like asparagus or other rare food or other things to get one... if you didn't have that technical inspections, authorities could confiscate your car

[@jwenting]

yeah, and often even came with a full set of tools, stashed away in a special compartment in the boot. These on occasion came in handy to swap out light bulbs or remove wheels.

[@Gulitize]

how about a video about Multicar, the only east German car brand still in existence

[@mardiffv.8775]

I cycled twice through East Germany and on every trip I saw a Trabant (in good working order) parked in the drive way. As a proud symbol of being East German. Another car (not a Trabant) had a sign behind the windshield: "GDR Witches". And yes, 2 women were in that car.

[@ivot.2587]

8:15 "Trabant" has both headlight and turning lights indicators on the inside the speedometer. The "delixe" version has fuel gauge.

[@johnkern217]

Thank you, love when I see anything about the D.D.R. I have a question for you. Do you think you would have a video of the military of any Warsaw pack armies?

[@jakub_paints6775]

My Grandfather had one in the early 00s. We used to go through a forest, off road to gather wood with it. It was fun.

[@enpakeksi765]

The Trabant occupies a sublime spot that's usually reserved for media: _it's so bad, it's good._

[@benkamelmayssem5780]

I spent the last couple of years in Berlin, I saw some of these cars and I have to mention that many buses were made by the same manufacturer of the Trabant.

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

Calling a car based on the cutting edge technology of 1935 terrible never seemed fair. Keeping it in production into the early 1990's was more the fault of those holding the purse strings. The manufacturer tried several times to update it but were stopped because it was seen as "good enough". My Grandad had a Wartburg back in the 80's (in the UK), he loved it and he drove a few vehicles in his life, but was upset Nan made him get rid of it (he got a rust bucket Passat as a replacement and then a Reliant Regal which was more for Nan's liking! Strange woman!).

[@iana6713]

Story goes that they almost got approval to launch an updated model in the late '70s, but politics got in the way and the funds for an upgrade of Zwickau were diverted to the Ludwigsfelde truck plant. Trucks for export brought in more hard currency.

[@ontheleveltk]

There’s a Trabant club that drives their cars during the Steuben Parade on 5 Ave here in New York. You could smell and hear them well before you could see them

[@neilfoster814]

I own a 1988 Trabant P601 Kombi (estate). They are a funky little car for sure. Mine definitely doesn't belch clouds of blue smoke, it only smokes a little bit on first start up when cold, but after that you can hardly see any smoke at all. The biggest problems are usually electrical due to corrosion on the connections.

[@Game_Hero]

I love how the comment section has united around trabant jokes and memories of how crappy they were, a great day for the internet.

[@KoreanBackdash]

And yet you could literally repair everything by yourself, still making it a super popular car back then. It brought you from A to B without a problem. Today a modern E-car could ignite randomly, you can't fix anything not even swapping a faulty light, reselling is literally nonsensical because of the battery, and any repair on anything cost you a fortune. So much for "economic".

[@atlasz911]

I'd love to drive a Trabant one more time. It was enjoyable to drive it. Even on dirt roads. Remember that this is a many decades old design. "Reputable" corporates managed to produce cars that were shittier several decades later. Just remember Daewo Tico.

[@TheTitaniumSkull]

Served on the border from 1986=1990. Was like two different worlds between west and east when I drove my American car from Fulda to Eisenach. Saw some Trabi's running around with their unique put put sound and then drowned out by the russian soldiers being ferried around in their troops trucks with a sullen looks on their face. Everyone was so despondent that they didn't even notice a car driving around with tags that said USA on them. Whole place looked like a step back in time like it was still the late 40s. Everyone on both sides were overjoyed with the opening of the borders, but by the time the Unification was underway the negative attitude between people on both sides was growing. Took quite a few years to modernize east germany and by that time attitudes recovered.

[@sourabhmayekar3354]

Nice

[@KonradAdenauerJr]

Yes, we used to mock the Trabant behind the Iron Curtain. A friend used to joke that it ran on beans. 🤣

[@m0llux]

How can you tell the Sports version of the Trabant apart from the regular version? By the sneaker shoes on the back of the seats.

[@richardkammerer2814]

We had a few Trabants in the U.S., and of course quite awful and dangerous but distinct. I had to laugh when I saw a neighbor get pulled over by the police for insufficient lighting.

[@alexdhall]

Yep Aging Wheels has one, as well as a Lada, and most recently a Polski Fiat!

[@Awoken_Remmuz]

Everytime I think of the Trabant I think of a joke my dad liked to occasionally like to tell me as a kid. "How do you double the value of a Trabant?" "You fill the tank with gas"

[@TheMrsnkl]

one of my dads cousins used to have one, he drove me to my grand parents once with it and the dude floored it 95% of the 50km trip and the passenger door couldnt close properly. how we didnt die that day or how that thing didnt broke its still a mistery to me to this day 😂

[@NormanF62]

The Trabi: the first plastic car. It would never rust! Its design was utilitarian, reliable and timeless. No car like it was made before or after it was gone. A true German classic! 😊

[@mikethespike7579]

I know former Trabant owners who lived in far flung villages in East Germany. They told me the Trabant was anything but a car, it was terrible, smelly, too small, uncomfortable, complicated to drive and noisy,. But then, they said, it was still far better than the god awful East German public bus service that ran maybe twice a day connecting these villages. At least the "car" offered a reliable, individual transport alternative, got you from A to B and kept you dry and warm in bad weather.

[@Robozgraggi]

A family friend was in West Berlin when the wall fell. She said within hours there was a flood of Trabants and Wartburgs creating an unbearable smell in the air.

[@gregwochlik9233]

I moved back to Poland in 2020, after 30 years on a different continent. In the 4 years here, I saw a running Trabbie once or twice (the same one).

[@twistedyogert]

A friend of my mother was living in West Germany around the time of unification. When the wall came down, there were suddenly all these fully loaded Trabants on the autobahn, and because of all the weight they couldn't go faster than 35-40mph. Traffic must've been horrible with all the smoke.

[@adrianbaron4994]

There's a company in Berlin called Trabi World that organises Trabant safaris lasting 70 minutes, either through the former East or former West Berlin. Great fun.

[@jpgiodevs]

I daily mine. Rough and utilitarian, but damn if it isn't more fun than a modern SUV.

[@Guerilla_G]

I drove a trabant in Berlin and actually I thought it was quite a charming and adequate vehicle considering it was quite cheap. I thought it was relatively fine to drive and the quality wasn’t as outstandingly poor as I had been led to believe. I’ve driven a 1960s mini and an NSU Prinz and it is really an excellent competitor to both. Given it’s a car designed in the late 40s, early 50s it’s quite forward thinking compared to other economy cars of the era, both eastern and western. The main thing behind the trabant having such a bad reputation is that it was made for such a long time long after it was outdated and standards changed that people were comparing it to cars 5-10 times more advanced. I imagine if you took a western economy car from the 70s and kept making it today it will develop a similarly poor reputation.

[@shlomomarkman6374]

The Trabant situation was still better then what happened in the USSR itself. The various VAZ models were not as bad as the Trabant as they had 4 cylinder engines and metal frames but they were at a very short supply, unobtainable to the majority of the people as their price relative to earnings was twice higher to them then a Tesla model S to an American worker today (it's even worse because American workers can use credit to buy said model S)

[@Andronicus2007]

I think it is worse to have access to "easy credit". It ain't so easy to pay back!

[@shlomomarkman6374]

@@Andronicus2007 No credit means no access to very important things in life like shelter and transportation unless you're truly rich. If there was no credit you would need to live with your parents for long time until you saved enough to buy a house/apartment with cash while also being without a car so with limited choice of workplace. That's btw was the way of living in the USSR-6 people across 3 generations in a 2 bedroom apartment and very limited ability to travel as we couldn't buy a car. Also, if you fell into hard time the only credit was from a loan shark...

[@AP57532]

It would certainly be useful to continue the reflection and to deal with two aspects of this matter. Firstly, to compare the characteristics of a free and a state-controlled economy. A divided factory in a free economy gave rise to Audi, and under scientific and expert state control it gave rise to Trabant. And secondly, why are there people (and there are not a few) who remember what a perfect vehicle the Trabant was, how advanced and sophisticated it was, and that sadly no one has produced anything like it since.

[@oldesertguy9616]

I remember hearing about the West Germans complaining about the smoky, smelly East German cars that suddenly came into their cities when the wall came down.

[@JohnSmith-rw2yn]

The Lada is the car you want and we all need. A friend who went to Russia many years ago said you could buy one for dirt cheap money, but driving it across Europe back to the UK and then paying taxes, paperwork and import fees on it would be 10 to 20 times the cars value! I'd love to have one 😅

[@no1DdC]

Ladas were actually exported to Western Europe, including the UK, and quite successful for a while due to their low prices. Quality was abysmal though, which began to impact sales and when stricter safety and emissions legislation came into place, it killed them off in most places.

[@JohnSmith-rw2yn]

@@no1DdC Reliability can go hang once you fall in love with a car though.

[@iana6713]

​@@no1DdCOh yes, the quality was awful. Remember reading a story from a guy who worked in a Lada garage here in the UK: Customer brings new Lada back days after purchase complaining of dreadful smell. Eventually, after ripping out half the interior, they find the mouldy remains of a production line worker's lunch under the rear seat! Yuck!

[@ca.elizabeth]

I had an opportunity to drive one of those this summer. It is definitely an experience. It is loud, and it really smells and is flimsy at best :d

[@MrTommyBoy75]

Memories of receiving a picture of my East German pen friend in the late 1980s with his trabant...