Trabant - Optional Extra 

Thanks for all the comments on my pronunciation of "Sachsenring". I'll get it right next time!

Thank you verry much for the Trabant episode. The name "trabant" is a direct translation of the russian word sputnik, wich means satelite but can also mean companion. The german word "trabent" however only realy means sattelite in the meaning of moon. The man made objects orbiting around our planet ar simply called "satellit". East and west germany were not like north and south korea. the countries had far more economic relations than both liked to admit at the time. West german mail order catalogs for example were filled with eastern bloc (mostly GDR) made products disguised by in house brand names. Ironically the same consumer goods that were in short supply in the countries of their origin. In 1978 the GDR on the other hand imported 10,000 new Golfs in an politically orchastrated deal to thame down the shortage on it's domestic car market. VW (partially a state owned company) didn't got paid in money but with east german made products and raw materials, mostly machine tools but also the optics for the Wolfsburg Planetrium. This inter-german trade relations got more intense as eastern germany was basically bancrupt by 1980 but needed money to further improve standart of living to keep it's populatiuon happy, which ultimately didn't work out. But one important point you (as many other english speaking outlets) kinda missed to explain I think is why and how the trabant or eastern bloc cars in general ulimately baecame so outdated. The reason why it fell out of time was not a simple lack of money. It was a structural problem to eastern bloc planned economies where the decision of developing and manufacturing of any new pruduct was not a matter of market demand or competition, but political decision making. State institutions would estimate the need for pretty much all goods on the market in advance and then allocate recources and production quotas to respective companies to fulfill that need. This process is somewhat related to the way government purchases are done in the western world, where the product in question just has to fullfill a set of clearly defined minimus standarts. This "good enough"-mentanity in the political apperatus was one of the main reason why not just the Trabant but most eastern bloc consumer products effectively stopped developing at some point in time. Because why spend precious recources on developing a whole new car if the current model fulfills your population's need for personal motorized transport already (which was the main reason for it's initial political approval in the first place).

That picnic was just one nail in GDRs coffin. East Germans tried to escape via the west German embassy in Prague, at one point more than 4,000 refugees were on the embassie's grounds. So the two German government arranged a transport by train from Prague to West Germany which was a disaster for the East German government as the trains had to go through East German territory and a lot of people in East Germany tried to get on those trains. There was a steady flow of refugees who fled from East Germany via Prague. That put a lot of pressure on the East German government and eventually brought the Berlin Wall down. So that picnic started something but the pressure was already so high

I grew up in St.Louis Missouri USA. As a kid, walking to a store [ in an upper scale neighborhood], we 3 saw an unusual car pulling into the parking lot. One friend said it’s a Cadillac, my other friend claiming it a Lincoln. Me, being more of a car guy, told them they were wrong. It was a ZIL❗️ A Russian car. My 2 friends thought me mad. - until we got to the car. Clearly having Russian lettering. It was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. It was not a ZIL, I later learned it was a Chaika❗️ What it was doing here in the Midwest of the USA, remains a mystery, But, ever since, I’ve had some fascination with Soviet era cars. The trabant is interesting. Your videos are excellent. 📻🚗🙂

Hungarian here, my grandad had a Trabant, my uncle had a Trabant and recently we bought a Trabant! I have to say, it doesn't seem like much but these little cars are just dripping with character! We call them 'szappantaró' or soapbox. In Hungary there are only two types of people: those who have/have had a Trabant or those who know someone who has or had a Trabant!

The August Horche Museum in Zwickau is worth a visit. Horche was thrown out of the Auto Union and wasn't allowed to use his own name in further car production. Horche means "Hark" or "Listen" and so he decided to use the name Audi which also means "Listen".

Living in Graz, Austria, just about 70 km (45 miles) to the Hungarian border, I can assure you that was a exciting, dramatic and scary time all at once. If you missed to listen the radio news for more than half an hour your knowledge was outdated already. Same thing neary a decade before, when Slovenia and Croatia seperated from Yugoslavia. 50 km (30 miles) away from war...☹

Loved the trabant videos. I lived in Bulgaria around 2000 and the painstakingly slow little buggers were everywhere!. Even saw a trabant engine attached to a wooden cart making it a motorised wooden cart.

The DKW F9 vs. IFA F9 story is probably worth considering a bit more in depth - not only because this car had concurrently been made in both post war German states. The production of the IFA F9 moved from Saxony to the former BMW plant in Eisenach to be further developed into the Wartburg (3 cylinder two stroke, water cooled, really nice cars in the 50ies/60ies) They even made a right hand drive version called "Knight" for export to the UK (and also as far as to South Africa where technically similar DKW were popular)

Regarding the roof tent, they are actually very nice, as you are able to sleep on a regular 140x200 matress, complete with normal bedding, stored readily inside, instead of a sleeping bag. Super comfortable, especially for a tent! Setting it up is pretty quick too, takes about 3 minutes with a little practice, same goes for folding it back up. Also it doesnt really feel unsafe, well except climbing up and down maybe. But it's secured pretty solidly to the Trabants entire body. It does make that little two stroke engine even more thirsty though.

Thanks a lot on the Trabbi videos. We used to own several in the late 90s and 00s from when we were student on here in the Netherlands. At some point we had 5 of them, a 601 station (with coil springs, 12V, electronic ignition and CV joints on the front axles, a body of ‘89 but registration of ‘73) a 601 sedan with the complete body as replacement part (so called Erzatsteil chassis number), a p60 , a 601 border patrol kubelwagen (strangely enough with “original” 70s Dutch registration) and even a P70coupe of which only 1500 were built. When converting 6V cars to 12V I always left the starter motor in place, the windings being though and enough and double the crank revs…. Thanks again for a trip down memory lane.

How refreshing to see a guy who is more interested in conveying information to us, than in promoting himself. Thus he earned our admiration, and paradoxically promoted himself.

The Genex brand name still lives. These days it's run by Gerrit Crummenerl, a car dealer who happens to specialise in reconditioned / refurbished / original low mileage examples of just about every car that was available to DDR citizens, including Western cars that were supplied in DDR-spec. He even owns some of the Citroën CX Prestiges that were the exclusive preserve of General Secretary Erich Honecker.

Awesome storytelling!!I simply love the fact that you do not read it but tell it.

I was required on a few occasions to meet with a dissident in East Berlin. He was very proud of his Wartburg as it had a fuel gauge instead of the fuel dipstick with which the Trabbie was equipped :)

6:37 pulling a caravan with the Trabant was not so common for obvious reasons. But in a "GDR" context with the ubiquitous shortage of everything having a trailer hook was essential. (called "Mausehaken" - with "mausen" - from mouse - being a popular term for stealing things in German) There were smaller trailers available for Trabant drivers. The popular "Klappfix" (funny official term back then - "fold quick") had a lid which folds away to sustain a larger tent for camping. Inside a basic kitchen with cooker and sink was available. Such a trailer also offered much needed space for additional luggage for the family on their trip to the sunny Black Sea beaches of Bulgaria or the Balaton Lake in Hungaria. Dream destinations for us these days. The communist system didn't allow to change enough money to eat in restaurants and/or local supply was insufficient (Poland, Romania) So the typical traveler loaded food supply- sausages, cheese, tinned food for the trip. Trailers were useful activities such as building a house or at least a lodge ("Datsche"). As delivery of building material was not an option - the Trabant - in the best case with a trailer was to be used. Often sand, bricks and concrete "evaporated" from public constructions where the were stored carelessly in the open air. (hence the name Mausehaken :-) )

Very interesting videos on a very interesting car! A note on the pronunciation of the company "Sachsenring": In German, the letter combination "sch" equals the English "sh". "chs", like in Sachsenring, meanwhile, is pronounced "ks" or "x" - at least that's the closest analogue in the English language. Hope that helps!

I got to know the Trabi in the suitably Orwellian year of 1984, when I visited East Berlin as a 17-year-old exchange student from Australia. Back then, East Berlin's streets were almost bare of any vehicles at all, other than Trabis, the occasional Mazda 323 and the very occasional Volvo 244 (for Honecker and his mates). We visiting students chose to dub the Trabis "Mickey Maus Autos". Even in those days, they were so old fashioned that the whole East Berlin experience felt like going back to the 1950s. Many years later, on another visit to Berlin in 2006, I went on a "Trabi Safari", which was a guided tour of the city as part of a procession of self-driven Trabis. At my special request, my own Trabi was a "Cabrio Trabi", and I drove it with the top down. With the benefit of a little impromptu instruction about its various quirks (starting, changing gear, etc), I found it great fun to drive.

The F89 looks a lot like a Saab 92, also booth 2 strokers

In Yugoslavia where I was born, Trabant had no waiting list and was the only car to beat Zastava 750 in pricing, except for the few ZAZ 968 which was so bad that rarely anyone bought it.

Love the extra video. Not as polished, but more like a mate chatting over a beer. Thanks for this, really liked it - and the blu-tac caption had me laughing! 😂👍

Sachsen, "ch" pronounced "K", is the very same word as Saxon, as in Anglo-Saxon. ;-) Sachsenring is a race track in Chemnitz, Sachsen. Or Saxony, in English. BTW, I was in Budapest for a week that summer. I was 22, on vacation. The town was filled with young East Germans, all very nervous. After a few drinks some of them told me about what was happening, they were going to the border. History in the making.

Love the video(s) - loved the joke ☺️😉👍 Btw, during the late 80`s, I often flew in my ultralight airplane (trike), powered by a Trabant engine. It worked out really well... and it sounds lot better, driving on a propeller, than the actual car.

There was this rich American who had heard of a car named the Trabant that had delivery times of well over ten years. So he thought this would have to be something very special, put a cheque of 100,000 dollars into an envelope and mailed it to East Berlin. The East Germans were most impressed, took a Trabant out of the running production, put it into a big wooden crate and shipped it to the U.S. When it arrived, our American opened the crate and called all his friends over: "Look at this, guys. Not only have they accepted my order but they've sent me a scale model before the real thing and, would you believe it, it even has a little engine and I can drive it around my garden!"

Both videos brought back memories of my visit to Berlin and Kraków. You can do actual Trabant tours where you hire the little things and drive past the cities' attractions! Great memories, thanks

Fun fact, I think I told it before. August Horch sold his company. He started a new one later, but he couldn't use his own name Horch. So he went to use the latin version of his name. Horch is a bit like hearing, so Audi, like audio.

Fun fact; in South Africa we call DKW "Duitse Kak Wa" which translates to "German S...t Wagon" - quite fitting

The enthralling GDR museum in Dresden has several motoring exhibits, including the tiny caravan which could be towed by a Trabant. The name survives in Trabantstrasse in Zwickau. Though I suspect most of the residents would prefer to emphasise that Zwickau is the birthplace of Robert Schuman.

Saab meets Morris Minor!

It's prounced Saxenring 🙂 Another interesting East/West storyline revolves around the old BMW factory in Eisenach, which became EMW and later produced the Wartburg.

Back in around 1994, so not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, my friends dad decided it would be a bit of a laugh to buy a Trabant, So he did. He bought one sight unseen, (obviously pre internet days), from a guy in Berlin, then he and my mate, who would have been around 18 at the time, flew over to Berlin then drove this 1970's vintage Trabant 601 estate from there back to Oxford, (England). Over 700 miles, at around 50-55mph flat out the Autobahns must have been interesting.

I was surprised because I assumed you already made a Trabant video, but I was wrong. I love the video! My dad had 5 of the Trabant in the late 90s. Now he occasionally drives a Reliant Rialto which is almost fully restored! I hope we'll see a Reliant 3 wheeler video at some point!

I enjoyed your joke. I was stationed there in 1989 and remember it well. There's an old joke from before the Berlin wall but whenWestBerlinhadfoodshortages: one dog is going from West Berlin to East Berlin. At the border he meets another dog going the other way. He says to the westbound dog "I'm going to get something to eat. Why are you going West? There's nothing to eat there. The other dog replies "I know, but I want to bark".

Real lovely thing, I would still have one as a backup for the reliability - I live on a hilltop, and it would have been a big help in the circumstances randomly fall on us. My dad did a few trips up over the arctic circle, and it performed better than most of the cars, specially the RWD/front heavy/luxury Volgas/Mercs stuck all the way, pulled and saved by the 26HP Trab. One more story for the contrary, dad got stuck around the arctic, where roads are really just 5 meter high poles to give you directions, and you see a third of those due to the massive snow season. He was stuck because sometimes that snow melts, form undetectable water channels, and you drop in them. It was a Thursday fortunately, when the post car came that way, and if it wouldn't be, then he would be an icicle and I wouldn't be here. The Trab 601 didn't have a ventillator to heat the cabin, moving wind should do that. So being stuck there would mean you freeze before the gas runs out. Or you just hug the engine, or whatever.

Haha! I love that Genex joke. I'm going to look at the catalogue. It looks like a time capsule.

I love these "optional" videos. Really enjoy the kind of info you get into

The Trabant also seen time in the dirt, too. The Trabant 601 has a variant called the 800 RS which was created specifically for rally racing. Similarly, we also seen some Eastern bloc cars like the Skoda 130 and Tatra 603 doing their time in the rally scene.

That set up at 6:55 is just beautiful , WOW . Another great video , then information and the pictures that go with the video , just great . Mike .

I visited Berlin in 1989 as the wall was coming down, I heard the following joke. An East Berlin from door was knocked and the party representative told the tenant that he qualified for a new Trabant car and was on the waiting list, expected delivery was July 26, 2026. He asked the party rep would that be morning or afternoon. The rep asked why that mattered and the reply was, “ well the plumber is coming in the morning “ 😅

Thank you for sharing these tidbits of information. It was really fascinating. I love political history, but there was still a lot new here. Thanks for the great channel too. I always follow every episode you make

Accelleration was actually better than you would imagine. Not your standard 0-60 mph, because the car couldn't really do 60, but in a city, from one traffic light to another it would often leave many other cars behind (in a dense cloud of the half-burnt petrol/oil mixture). That was partly due to the relatively short gear ratios. A couple of fun facts: - One draback of the body material was that the cars were know to be eaten by pigs if left unatended for a longer time in the countryside. - The Crazy Frog (remember ding ding pch n daa bam-ba-ba-ba-re-bam? Google it), was an increadibly faithful onomatopoeia of Trabant's engine sound, especially when the driver was trying to squeeze every last HP form it.

Oh, we need a Tatra video! Though I'd recommend staying away from the typical story about it being the Czechoslovak secret weapon. As that's a story that appears to come from the 1980s UK and not from 30s or 40s Europe and has been quite reliably debunked as the Tatra 87 has been praised for its handling at the time. I you'd need I could help you with getting and proofing the info.

Well done! A little difficult to follow, but very interesting. If I may say so it illustrates how much research goes into your videos, which we the public don't probably realise!

I remember being in West Berlin at a traffic light, after the wall came down. I heard a bass boat pull up along side me. I turned to look, and it wasn't a bass boat; it was a Trabant!

Respect for tackling the complicated "ch". In that case it would have been pronounced like "Saksenring" "Sachsen" (Pronounced "Saksen") is "Saxony", a federal state in what used to be east-Germany. In German CH is either "k" or a hiss-sound (Horch) somewhat like clearing your throat a little. It's difficult to explain since there's not a "rule" to memorize.

The punchline of that joke I had heard was "Uncle Walter from Hamburg is here!"

I am sure the Genex joke is rioutous in context, but it went right over my head.

The Genx joke was pretty good, actually

It's nice that this car is still in pop culture because of a certain spy anime.

For those interessted in some sourunding infos, Derendorf, the place the F 89 was built is a quarter of the city of Düsseldorf and is the same part of the city where Rheinmetall is based and opened their first factory. And AFAIK the factory where Auto Union built the F 89 was actually one purchased by Rheinmetall after the war.

Brilliant video, I enjoyed the Trabant story. Great car channel, thank you. Peace be unto you.

Fun automotive connection! Otto von Habsburg’s grandson Ferdinand Habsburg is a racing driver

Those tents are mental.

Thank you for a very intersecting video!

Very interesting extra info. Thanks!

10:15 In Poland there was something similar, called Pewex, but everyone with a hard currency in hand could buy everything they wanted. This shop was also performing the "domestic export" of goods pathology, so you could buy there a fiat 126p. The catch was was to get this currency, but there was always a friendly cinkciarz nearby (phonetic transcription of badly spoken: change cash) - an illegal mobile exchange, mostly run by a security service informer, but luckily not interested in security at all 😂

The "chs" in Sachsenring is simply spelled like an "x". Like "Saxenring". Sachsen is Saxony. And these roof-tents were called "Villa Sachsenruh", which means something like "mansion of saxony's recreation..."

The thing with the F9/F89 was that IFA in the east had the engine and DKW in the west had the body - the tooling for the latter had been commissioned from a company in the Ruhrgebiet and completed but not shipped when the war effort ramped up, it had been left outside for several years but was salvageable. "F89" meant F8 chassis and powertrain with F9 body since DKW had already reverse-engineered the F8 mechanicals to supply parts for it and their earlier models, as well as start full production of Schnellaster vans.

They were popular in Poland 1970-2000. My favorite was model 600 from the 60's.

Great videos as always! The eastern bloc history is so interesting.

I feel you, blue tack has betrayed me many times over the years. I just gave up and started using that 3m double side foam tape for hanging stuff on the wall.

Great channel.

someone in School had an Trabant that he used to drive on the Familiy Farm, but i wouldn't say i felt safer than in a Golf. But in the End, it's also less dangerous to walk into a wall then driving into one and while Trabant means also satellite but then again, it comes from the latain word satelles, and it means more stellar companion like "the moon" and not like "person that accompany one" Also, have you ever looked at Cobi Models? They even have a Model of a Trabant, including other eastern and italian car models

Great video

The first video was fascinating- thank you for such good videos! Love the Trabant ever seeing the one on Rob’s channel (Aging Wheels)

Really enjoyed the extras and the Genex joke was a good laugh!

Always wanted a Trabant! Had a 1976 Wartburg for a while. Wish I still had it! Fantastic engine - I love 2 - strokes! The Soviets weren't wrong choosing the Tatra as a luxury car!

The soviets didn't dictate who could make what cars. The decisions like that happened in COMECON meetings, which deeply undermined the Soviets role in eastern europe. Comecon had no authority in itself, it was just a forum where the different countries would attempt to hash out agreements to cooperate in certain economic activities. Most of those kinds of agreements collapsed because they were purely voluntary and there was no consequences if they changed their mind.

The Sachsenring (pronounced saxon-ring) came from the name of a famous racetrack ('ring') located in Saxony. Ethnically, East Germans were overwhelmingly Saxons, and spoke a saxon variant of 'low' German.

The "genex" thing is really interesting, never heard of this before! Loved the video.

The old Wartburg Coupé looked quite elegant, actually

I love how informative and carefully prepared your videos are and I can only imagine how much fun you must have had diving into the meanders of eastern block life and economy :-) I come from Poland and although I had a chance to witness the last decade of the communist reality, I found the part on Genex highly entertaining. Just as a side note, this leads me to believe that similar "foreign currency gaining schemes" were present in many communist countries. In Poland iit was probably aimed at gaining hard currency from relatives of Poles who emigrated or from some Poles working on foreign contracts. In Poland the scheme was called Pewex and took the form of a network of physical shops in major cities where you could buy imported goods for USD or....for the local equivalent of US dollars. Yes, to make it the more hillarious, it was officially illegal for a Pole to own USD...and yet the shops existed...the trick was that you were officialy expected to notify the authorities of your dollars, hand them over and receive a 1 to 1 equivalent of the disclosed currency in state-issued coupons valid in these Pewex stores....but in reality, you could pay for goods directly with your dollars instead. Two fun facts: 1. In Pewex you could buy everything from chewing gum, Mars bars, Matchbox and Lego toys to imported cars. I actually own a copy of a daily paper from 1978 with an advert of Pewex in which they informed what new, imported cars were available for purchase. The list included: Citroen CX, Peugeot 504, Renault 18, Ford Taunus and Granada, Opel Ascona, Record, Commodore and even Senator, Volvo 214 GLS. Unfortunately, list prices were not disclosed 2. Perhaps even more hillarious than the fact that you were able to pay in Pewex stores with an illegal currency, was the scheme of "internal exports" (what a contradiction in terms!). This would be exactly what Genex was about in East Germany. Namely, you could avoid a waiting list for a Polish-made Fiat by paying for it in USD in the national bank, instead of trying to obtain a permit to buy a car and join a huge waiting line. Trick is, in Poland, you could make the "hard currency" purchase of your Polish automobile even locally in Poland. What I mean is that you didn't need to live abroad to complate that transaction.

In former Yugoslavian countries, one urban legend is still present. Somewhere, someone had a Trabant, and the car was eating by pigs. There is one song about it, and it is depicted in one movie.

Enjoyed the Trabant videos very much! I was surprised though that the nickname the East Germans gave the car wasn't mentioned: Trabbi.

I've seen nearly all the videos, really like it. Let me tell you that this one was the one I like the most so far, way better tone and speech rythm. Gotta be cause in this one you obviously got the data and go along talking about it, while in the others you are reading the whole text. Way better this way.

The East German F9 was rebodied to become the Wartburg. Also recall reading online the British Army confiscated one DKW F9 prototype at the border to Denmark, though it is a pity BSA did not produce a version of the car as war reparations in the same manner it did when BSA gained the DKW RT 125 motorcycle design to create the BSA Bantam.

Thanks for the video and your interest in eastern bloc car industry. However, quite a number of inaccuracies remain. The F9 wasn't skipped at AWZ Sachsenring in Zwickau for the P70, production of the F9 as a 3-cylinder was transferred to Eisenach, making it the forerunner of the Wartburg 311 and subsequently the 353. Paralleling the 240, Sachsenring was also making lorries originally also branded Horch. The 240 wasn't skipped mainly because of the Tatra, a rather rare car in the GDR, but because of the Wolga M21 imported in serious numbers. The 601 estate wasn't event completed at AWZ Sachsenring at Zwickau, there was a separate factory in Meerane, same with the Kübel. Story interestingly told though!

4:05 "Ch" in german is hard as K and "Chs" is read "X", so Sachsen is none other than Saxon (you know those guys living in that mansion in London... 😜) and Sachsenring is the place that today hosts MotoGP races on its former test track😀

Film by Anders Østergaard: 1989. BRILLIANT

Recall visiting Budapest in Jan 03 and seeing a couple still running then. Interesting but not on my to buy list.

So good Quality Videos, you really have to do the Barkas in a Video. A really important Bus in the GDR.

DKW F102 was the last using a 2-stroke engine. It was replaced by the Audi 60/72/80/90, using basically the same body (with few changes, like rectangular headlights), but with a Mercedes 4-stroke engine.

Got my to remember that many if not all east block countries had special shops. Where you could buy luxuries for west currency.

Waiting for a plane at a small Ryanair airport in Thuringia, early 2000s, there's this deafening roar from the apron... everyone looks round, it's a little Trabi Kombi airport vehicle ripping down the taxiway. Most of the people were East German and thought it was hilarious, the West Germans didn't seem to see what was so funny about it, unfortunately.

4:42 *The license-plate read W 84.4530* That could be one Austrian plate from Vienna one of the 9 States in Austria. W= Wien / Vienna. Unless such plates were used in Germany but I thought they had black lettering with white backgrounds. We had this type of plate for many decades. In fact the tags for my first car in the mid 1970 was in this style. The building in the background was very popular at that time in Austria as well. Strange, how videos like this tempt people to tell their own stories...

I’ve wanted to get a Trabant ever since I learned about them; I think they’re charming in their own.. Interesting way.

Thanks for the video. The East German company Sachsenring was named after a race track ("Ring") in the land of Sachsen, Saxony. It's pronounced "Sahxon-Ring")

In eastern block there were jokes about almost everything, underlining poor quality of the 'comunist' production. I remember about the trabant this one: An Arabian sheikh, extremely reach, wanted to buy another car to his garage. This time nevertheless, he looked through the catalogue for a car with the longest waiting time. Mercedes - 1 month, ridiculous. Rolls-royce - 1 year, looks pretty, but let's find something even more interesting. Oh! There's trabant! Waiting time 15 years! What a luxury car it must be so the queue and production time are so long!!! Let's place an order! When in Zwickau they found the sheikh's order, they of course made everything to fullfil asap. After 2 weeks trabant arrived and the sheikh, completely amazed, shouts to his secretary 'Abdul, look what an amazing producer of those trabants is! Just after 2 weeks they already sent me a plastic business gift, AND IT WORKS! 🤣🤣🤣

the F9 is very similar to the DKW-Vemag Belcar, manufactured in Brazil under license. Even this car in Brazil had several variants, such as the Vemaguet, Fissore, and was the base chassis for the vehicles of the Brazilian manufacturer Puma, as an example the Puma DKW

Thanks. Great job, (as always). Love the content and presentation. Do you have a Tatra 603 video in the works?

Enjoyed this vlog very much. It’s amazing how short sighted the east germain (and soviet) was. You made me laugh at the blindera they made. I’m no busisiness man, but even l see how off the rails they were. It’s obvions that common séance did not prevailnin soviet era Times! .

I once had a genex catalog from the 1980s in my hands many years ago. The things in it were quite expensive. There were even non-German cars in it like the Mazda 323 or Citroën CX e.g. And of course you can buy (as a West German) a Trabant or Wartburg for some D-Mark and it's delivered in a handful of weeks for your East German relatives.

I knew a slightly different (and possibly better?) version of the joke: the boy says Mum! Uncle Franz from Frankfurt is here!

Sachsenring (p.Saxenring) it's the name of a race track near Chemnitz close to the factory

Nice

Great videos about a quirky, but in a way innovative, old car. Duroplast sounds like a pretty great material.

If you want to cover an "ugly" car that is competitive with the Trabant, look up the Hanomag of the 1920s, also known as the Kommissbrot, or "army issue bread" in allusion to it's squared off body shape. My grandfather, who was born in Kirchberg south of Zwickau owned one of these one-cylinder cars. It was started by pulling up a handle between the two front seats (There really wasn't a rear seat), and he used it as a delivery vehicle for his business as a wholesale distributor of candy and cigarettes in pre-war Germany.

How to pronounce Sachsenring as an English speaker: Say "Saxon ring" and you more or less have it. RGW-Auto: RGW was the Rat für gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe, known in English as the Comecon (Council for mutual economic assistance), sometimes seen as a counterpart to the European economic community but working differently as it was a coordination tool between planned economies, not so much a grouping to facilitate international trade and competition. So there were agreements which country could produce what. In planned economy competition wasn't desired, instead concentrating production in a few big factories for the whole bloc was seen as a way to save expenses. Like a lot in the eastern bloc it was in the end very much controlled by Moscow. In the automotive world that meant that east Germany had to give up its plans to build a luxury car, as described in your videos. In railways it ment that the GDR produced great amounts of passenger coaches and freight wagons for the Comecon but stopped building big diesel locomotives at some point, importing locomotives instead from Voroshilovgrad (which is now Luhansk in a currently disputed part of Ukraine; that factory "Lugansteplovoz" by the way was shut down in the wake of post-2014 troubles). In aviation it meant that the ambitious project of one of the first jet airliners (Baade 152) was scrapped (there was also an unfortunate crash during a test flight). The east German airline Interflug mostly operated Soviet-built Ilyushin and Tupolev aircraft afterwards, but towards the end (in 1989) actually got three Airbus A310 (which became part of the government fleet after Interflug was dissolved in 1991).

It's Giorgetto Giugiaro, where Giorgetto (approximately translated as "tiny George") is pronounced Geor-JET-oh. By the way, awesome content as usual :)

Horch: is pronounced "hork". It is the German equivalent of the word "hark", and was first used to advertise (before Horch became a part of Audi..) that it was similar to the Audi. AUDI stood for something like Auto Union Deutches Industrei, but it sounded like the verb "to hear", hence the "hark" name was a word-play. Much like DKW was supposed to mean several things through the years. Originally it meant "Daft Kapmpf Wagon", which meant "steam powered car". Later, they said it meant "Die Kleine Wunder", meaning "the little wonder".