The 'fiberboard' car that whetted the appetite for mobility in Eastern Europe

When Europe was divided by a wall running through Berlin, the West had Mercedes, BMW, Audi or Volkswagen. And the East boasted Dacia, Lada, Moskvich and a few other car brands famous for their unreliability and technology. Among them was the German brand Trabant, cars that are now almost impossible to see on Romanian roads. Some people know them because they have driven them, others from their parents or others just from pictures. But the Trabant was a unique car the world over. Here is its story.

German brand with a Russian name

The Trabant is the name of a car made by the VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau plant in Saxony, in what is now eastern Germany, from 1957. At that time, just after the Second World War, the eastern part of Germany was under Russian occupation and called the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In fact, as in other Russian-controlled countries such as Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, everything revolved around communism.

And