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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg Nostalgic over the Trabant is like the Stalin voted 3rd greatest Russian (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/09/trabant-redux-mr-gorbachev-put-back-this-wall.html)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/trabant_ev.jpgDan Neil - LATIMES (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com) - Sept 16, 2009

Let's have an electric Chevy Vega --Ed.

As proof that, if given enough time, people will become nostalgic about anything, a German company is trying to reincarnate the Trabant, the smoky cesspool of a car made in East Germany in the days of the Soviet bloc. The company is Herpa (pity about the name), one of the country's biggest makers of metal miniatures -- models, in other words. After the wall came down in 1989, Herpa's head of marketing, Klaus Schindler, commissioned a model of the Trabant, the much-scorned, Duroplast-bodied city car made by the DDR in Zwickau to the woe of the working class. The orders came pouring in.

Then a funny thing happened: The orders kept pouring in, year after year. "We have never seen a life cycle quite like this," Schindler told me. In 2007, the company decided to see if it could market a real, full-size Trabant redux.... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/09/trabant-redux-mr-gorbachev-put-back-this-wall.html

Nooooooooooooooooo!

Just realized: how many of the Russians voting for their greatest people realize Stalin was Ukrainian?

Joseph Stalin was born in Georgia.

Any chance we can bring back the Edsil or the Delorian? For the latter, I heard you can see some serious sh!t if you hit 88 MPH.

Indigo- those two cars were Nobel Prize winning cars compared to the POS 2 stroke Eastern European cars.Hard to believe the Deutchers who built the V-2 and ME262 , fancy optics and cameras ,and even the cheapo VW bug could build such piles.

GM and Ford and Chrysler built MUCH WORSE cars than those. Of course They were famous flops. I suspect the Trabant actually sold for a profit since it wasn't as if it was built with exotic materials by precision craftsmen. No Titanium connecting rods-heck probably very little aluminum .

Ha, ha. Next thing you know someone will offer 6 cyl Ramblers with the famous aluminum heads-don't picture many folks signing up for that head gasket eater.It was actually a pretty nice car-except for the engine, of course.Or any of a HUGE number of 1960's-1970's Brit cars-Lucas electrics-Prince O D.

Memories. I don't think I ever saw a Trabant.Not sure I've ever seen a 2 stroke car even?? It would have been some tiny Euro car-50's-60's I guess.I can't remember hearing any rattle by in my youth.

Charlie

Joseph Stalin was born in Georgia.Georgia was not on my mind. :D :o

Hard to believe the Deutchers who built the V-2 and ME262 , fancy optics and cameras ,and even the cheapo VW bug could build such piles.

GM and Ford and Chrysler built MUCH WORSE cars than those. Of course They were famous flops. I suspect the Trabant actually sold for a profit since it wasn't as if it was built with exotic materials by precision craftsmen. No Titanium connecting rods-heck probably very little aluminum .

Charlie

There is no such thing as "profit" in the centrally planned command economies used by the Soviet controlled countries. Industrial production quotas were determined from the top down by central planning committees, not by the expected customer demand. Production priorities in the East German economy were; military production first, then production of products for export. After these first two were satisfied, then whatever materials and production capacity that were left over could then be used for the production of domestic goods. Since the Trabant was a "domestic good", it had to be produced on whatever trickle of raw materials was left over after military and export production were satisfied. So they had to be fairly creative to even be able to produce a car.

East Germany produced two car brands, the Trabant for the masses, and the Wartburg for the elite/political class. The Wartburg got the higher priority for raw materials and was closer to being a "real" car, even though it also used a 2-cycle motor. Since steel was in short supply for domestic production, The Trabant used a steel frame with most of the bodywork made of Duroplast. To me, the Trabant is a triumph of minimalism and is somewhat like what the end result would be if they had to build a car from scratch using non-automotive components on Junkyard Wars.