Interesting Facts

The number of Trabants registered in Germany sank from 920,162 in 1993, to 52,432 in 2007 and to just 38,912 in 2008. (Why? Well it has been driven by new emission regulations (you're simply not allowed to drive Trabis within most major cities here). So where have they all gone? Well without embarking on a Trabi hunt I can only think that a lot must be just sitting around not rusting away, they may outlast us all, although I have it on good authority that some Trabant bodies were ground up and used instead of sand or salt for traction on winter roads in the 90s. That said, people are strangely nostalgic about the old East Germany. They even have a word for it Ostalgie, (nostalgia for East Germany). Ost means east in German. So, I envisage lots of Trabi rallies in the future.)

Between 1957 and 19991 3,096,099 Trabants were produced in Zwickau. (From ordering to delivery there was a waiting period of at least ten years.)

The Bavarian company Herpa, a miniature model manufacturer located in Germany, announced at the International Automobile show in Frankfort a.M. that they want to put the Trabant back on the streets by 2009. (Now this won't be a model, this will be a full-sized car. But it will still be made out of plastic, so no difference there.)

Trabants, affectionately known as Trabbies, were made from plasticised cotton waste, called Duroplast. (They were unreliable, polluting, and slow, with maximum speed of 90km per hour (56mph), but they were very cheap.)