WORLD, Page 39TRANSPORTATIONHow Do You Double the Value Of a Trabant? Fill 'Er Up!East Germans may have driven the car to freedom, but jokesabout the "little stinker" sputter alongBy Howard G. Chua-Eoan/Reported by Ken Olsen/Bonn
Small, snub nosed, slow and the product of Stalinist central
planning, the Trabant is the ugly duckling of East Germany's
roadways. The ubiquitous "Trabi" has not had its flaky Duraplast
body redesigned since the first mass-production models rolled off
the assembly line in 1964. Its motorcycle-size two-stroke engine
coughs out more pollution than almost any other auto. Often the
motor's two cylinders come on line one at a time until they sputter
in unison in a puff of blue smoke, sounding uncannily like an
ancient sewing machine.
But last year the Trabi suddenly became a vessel for revolution
and liberty. First the car ferried cheering, champagne-drinking
East German refugees to the West. Then, after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, joyous citizens of the Democratic Republic stuffed
themselves into their Trabis and poured through border crossings
for shopping sprees and dreams of reunification. The Trabant became
the car a country rode to freedom. By all rights, it should be
hailed as the little engine that could. But it really can't. In
this fable, the ugly duckling finds love but stays ugly.
Once in the West, East Germans don't really want to hold on to
their old cars. Of the 2,413 Trabis registered in West Germany,
most are expected to be ditched for Volkswagens even as the drivers
dream of Mercedes-Benz, Audis, BMWs and Porsches. And while
Trabants account for less than 0.5% of the passenger cars in the
Federal Republic, they have caused a stir. "Almost every day we get
letters of complaint," says Bonn Environment Minister Klaus Topfer.
"The Trabant is a nuisance."
In border towns residents complain of Trabi traffic jams every
weekend as East Germans drive in for shopping. A study by Berlin's
Technical University has shown that Trabants spew roughly nine
times as many hydrocarbons and five times as much carbon monoxide
as most other cars in Western Europe. Though some West Germans
refer to the Trabi's distinctive mix of gas and oil smoke as "the
smell of freedom," others are more direct. They call the Trabi the
"little stinker."
It certainly isn't easy being a Trabi. Trabant jokes are now
a national pastime in the Federal Republic, just as they have been
in East Germany for decades. Some are flattering. "Why did Erich
Honecker refuse to drive a Trabant? Because the brakes kept pulling
to the West." But others simply pick on the helpless little car's
shortcomings. "Why is the Trabant the world's quietest car to
drive? Because your knees cover your ears."
Then there is the one about the customer who walks into a Trabi
dealer. Says the customer: "I want a Trabi with a two-tone paint
job."
Dealer: Yes, sir! It also comes with a turbocharged engine,
antiskid braking, radial tires and a Blaupunkt stereo.
Customer: You're joking.
Dealer: Well, you started it!
Andreas Kippe of West Germany's ADAC Auto Club has a favorite.
"How many workers does it take to build a Trabi? Answer: two, one
to fold and one to paste." But Kippe says the ribbing is all part
of West Germany's tough love for the ungainly auto. "Some of these
jokes sound nasty," says Kippe, "but people who love each other
make jokes about each other." In fact, ADAC's emergency service
aids any Trabi in trouble, free of charge.
For all its awkwardness, the Trabant has aroused protective
instincts in West Germany. Auto Zeitung magazine gave the Trabi
honorary top billing in its 1989 test results, praising the car's
"respect for the people who must live with it." A Trabi graced the
centerfold of Autobild's "Best Autos of 1989" edition. The
Frankfurter Allgemeine-Zeitung even compared the Trabant with the
Porsche Carrera. Both, said the paper kindly, are "useful as
getaway cars," but the Trabi has twice the Carrera's trunk space.
Soon, however, the Trabant that Germans both love and hate may
be no more. In 1990 East Germany plans to begin producing Trabants
fitted with cleaner, four-cylinder engines manufactured under a
1984 contract with Volkswagen. VW is also negotiating a joint
venture to develop a successor to the Trabi.
Museums in Brunswick and Munich have bought some of the old
clunkers to preserve what is perhaps the humblest symbol of one of
the most extraordinary years in German history. Concluded Auto
Motor und Sport: "The plain Beetle became a symbol of our economic
miracle. The Trabant, its simple counterpart from the East, gave
the first impulse to an even greater miracle." Proving, of course,
