[eru]

The classic claim was that the Trabi was made out of cardboard.

Of course, that's a myth: the Trabi was actually made out of cheap plastic.

The Trabant was actually a decent modern car when it debuted in 1957. The problem is that they produced it until 1991, when it was far from modern.

I was born in Zwickau, where the Trabant was produced. It's no accident that they picked Zwickau for the production, because that's where Audi's predecessor company (Horch) had made their cars before.

(Going on tangent: Audi is Latin for 'listen', and Horch is German for 'listen'.)

[flohofwoe]

> the Trabi was actually made out of cheap plastic

Today it would be called an 'advanced composite material', e.g. it's closer to fiberglass than plastic and used recycled materials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duroplast

[ido]

The Trabi was made of duroplast. Sussita, the only Israeli car (similar vintage) used fiberglass (only slightly better). I guess both had the advantage of being lightweight (and cheap).

[AniseAbyss]

The Trabant was a normal car if you look at what the rest of Europe was driving at the time. In fact the DDR did not economically collapse until the late 1970s.

Ofcourse the real problem was they could not actually make enough of them. You could go to a Citroen dealer and pick up a 2CV the same day.