Renze
Super Member
Trabant was a cheap vehicle it didn't pretend otherwise. In fact it was quite reliable, had large fuel consumption and it was only car that you could remove the engine from the car by bare hands overhaul it on your kitchen table and put it back in the car in about two hours. It was not made of fiberglass but from a material very similr to formica (Counter top stuff). There were many jokes about the car.
My neighbours wife comes from Germany, her father and his sister went to the West right before the Curtain was erected and the borders shut. He has been visiting wifes cousins all through the 70s till now, and has lots of anecdotes of how things went and how things changed over the years, he noticed the difference with every year they went there. The goods like clothing they sent there, the message they got "thanks for the trousers" but they sent a sweater and some shoes too which were taken by corrupt customs, and the transit road to West Berlin on which you couldnt stop to take a leak, or armed soldiers would come by and tell you to move on, because they were afraid of breakouts, and gas station employees could be secret service agents spying to the foreigners using the road...
When the Wall fell i was only 6 years old so it was all before my time, but living today, its hard to imagine for me that this took place just 400km from my house...
