A group of companies in Germany has announced plans to produce an electric small family sedan with solar panels providing additional power for accessories such as air conditioning. The companies–including automotive engineering firm IAV and manufacturer IndiKar–plan to introduce a prototype at German auto shows in September. Given recent trends in transportation and design, this move shouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. However, this car will be a new, green version of the Trabant, an icon of the Cold War fondly (or dismissively) known as the Trabi.
In order to understand the strange implications of this maneuver, readers have to step back in time a few decades. The Trabi had become a perverse symbol of East Germany when the first incarnation appeared in the late 1950s. Ungainly and unreliable, outsiders saw the car as an example of poor engineering and the even poorer aesthetic sense of the Warsaw Pact nations. Ungainly and unreliable, the Trabi led to a blend of stoic acceptance and morbid humor among its East German owners, and spawned cycles of jokes rich enough to make any folklorist giddy:
There is a big competition at my local pub, the first prize is a Trabant, ……..the second prize is two Trabants!
What is a Trabant owner’s greatest ambition?
To get a speeding ticket.What goes on pages four to five of the Trabant user’s manual?
The train & bus timetable.What do you have to do if your Trabant gets surrounded by a swarm of killer bees?
Stop pushing and hide in the car.
Trabis also inspired an odd sentimentality. Following reunification, former East Gernans came to see the little cars as symbols of an identity that was disappearing. A certain nostalgia for Trabants appeared, leading to fond recollections of family adventures in the little cars and the emergence of a market for toys and models.
This is where the story takes an even more bizarre turn. The campaign to create a new green Trabant began when a toy company reimagined the Trabi as an eco-friendly vehicle for the twenty-first century. Model manufacturer Herpa spearheaded the drive to revive the line that had stopped production in 1991, and has worked to raise awareness by selling elaborate models of the new e-Trabi and by making paper versions available as free downloads.