Can the Trabant make a comeback?
There are plans to revive the Trabant, the cheapest and most popular East German car during Communist rule. Amy Scott reports.
Amy Scott interviews IndiKar CEO Ronald Gerschewski inside the prototype for the new electric Trabant nT. (Alexander Heilner)
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Historian Stefan Wolle.
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall fell. Or started to fall, anyway. East Germans poured into West Germany -- many for the first time ever. And on that day a particular kind of car clogged the westbound roads: the Trabant. Marketplace's Amy Scott reports, there's now a plan to revive the car.
Amy Scott: During Communist rule, the Trabant was the cheapest and most popular East German car. Today an old model sits in a museum in Berlin.
STEFAN WOLLE: It's all plastic. Only plastic.
That's historian Stefan Wolle. Not only was the Trabi -- as it was called -- made of plastic. It was cramped, spewed dirty exhaust, and broke down frequently. But Wolle says it was beloved by East Germans who often had to wait to 10 to 15 years to get one. When they finally did, it was like a part of the family.
WOLLE: Like a cat or a dog. My lovely Trabi, ya.
After the Wall fell, East Germans could buy any car they wanted. Demand for the Trabi evaporated. But maybe not forever. Today Herpa, a company that normally makes model cars and planes, hopes to revive the old affection. It's teamed up with manufacturer IndiKar to bring back the Trabi. This time as an electric car.
IndiKar CEO Ronald Gerschewski shows me the prototype he debuted at the Frankfurt auto show this fall. It's a shiny, powder blue. Looks a bit like a longer version of another retro car -- Britain's Mini.
RONALD GERSCHEWSKI: That grip for opening.
Scott: Oh, sorry. There we go. I just pulled off some paneling.
It is just a prototype. Gerschewski hopes a sturdier version will hit the roads in the next three years or so. He's looking for investors and a partner to mass-produce the car. He says most of the interest has come from outside Germany.
GERSCHEWSKI: We have learned that the Trabant is a symbol of the German reunion, and it's a very positive symbol and it's well known all over the world.
Here in Germany, nostalgia has revived demand for some old Communist brands. But in the wider world, retro cars like the new VW Beetle and the PT Cruiser have failed to catch on. Without an experienced carmaker backing the new Trabant, one analyst told me the flop risk is very high.
In Berlin, I'm Amy Scott for Marketplace.
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From La Crosse, WI, 11/09/2009
The article said retro cars like the PT Cruiser "failed to catch on". I am not a Chrysler dealer nor owber, but is seems the first few years of its existsance the PT Cruiser was virtually "sold out of stock" at dealer ships and it was popular..until something perceived to be better came along. The old beetle was popular because nothing else like it existed at the time it was on the road; by the time the "new" beetle came along there were, and are, far better compact cars on the market. The same is true of the VW mini-bus...a legend in its own time...but its time has passed. Any of the domestic or Asian mini vans have it beat.
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