In the 1991 movie “Go Trabi Go”, a family from the former East Germany (GDR) journeys through Western Europe in one of the most well-known icons from the Soviet bloc, the eponymous Trabi or Trabant. Along a stretch of highway in the western section of the then newly united Germany, their car breaks down. The father calls a mechanic who asks what make the car is.
“A Trabant,” the man answers with a dash of pride.
“A Trabant? I hope you brought enough glue,” says the mechanic.
From the moment they first rolled off the assembly line of the VEB Sachsenring auto plant in Zwickau, Germany in 1957, Trabants have been both cherished and ridiculed. Families in East Germany and other nations within the Iron Curtain had to wait as many as 15 years to get a Trabant; thus anybody who possessed one strove to take great care of it. The average lifespan of the more than 3 million Trabants which were manufactured was 28 years. Older Trabants sometimes cost more than newer versions because they could be procured more quickly.
The Trabant, if anything, was a symbol of Communist-era resourcefulness. Because the high price of steel imports would have made manufacturing and purchasing costs prohibitive, the trunk lid, hood, fenders and doors were made of Duroplast, a resin plastic related to bakelite. For Trabant drivers, routine tasks like filling the tank with gas were quite involved. A Trabant owner had to lift the hood and mix in two-stroke oil together with the gas into a tiny 24-liter (six-gallon) tank.
While most drivers in Eastern Europe have since replaced their Trabants with Renaults, Volkswagens, Citroens and other western cars, it is not uncommon to see a Trabant chugging its way along the road. Nineteen years after the last one was produced, there are approximately 52,000 Trabants registered in Germany.
Bela “Spike” Kovacs from Bekescsaba, Hungary still relies on his Trabant to get him where he needs to go. “Why would I need a Mercedes when my Trabant gets me to the supermarket or to go see my daughter on the other end of town?” Kovacs said.
“It is a great car. I rarely have to take it into the repair shop,” added Kovacs, who has been driving his latest Trabant (a Trabant 601) since 1989.
Kovacs ordered his first Trabant (also a 601) in 1973 and had to wait more than two years before he could finally pick it up in Debrecen in northeast Hungary, 200 km from his home in Bekescsaba.
A diehard contingent of Trabant aficionados exists not only in Eastern Europe but throughout the world. A Facebook search uncovers several groups and pages dedicated to the car. Meanwhile, webpages focusing on the Trabant can be found in dozens of languages.
Richard Zabehlicky owns and operates Trabant Canada in Tottenham, Ontario, which sells Trabants to people throughout North America. “I was intrigued with the Trabant from the moment I first saw it when I lived in Prague in 1999. Some people told me it was junk, but it sparked my interest,” Zabehlicky said.
Zabehlicky brought a Trabant with him when he returned to Canada. “I would take the Trabant to auto shows and often pull up beside Ferraris and Maseratis,” he recounted. “People at the shows would be more interested in the Trabant than the sports cars.”
Although the last Trabant was manufactured in 1991, the brand may still have a future – and it may be in the unlikely color of green. Herpa, a Germany company that makes miniature cars, bought the rights to the Trabant name and has since, along with a firm named IndiKar, been planning to produce a line of environmentally clean vehicles under the Trabant brand in 2012.
The new version of the formerly eco-unfriendly, smoke-spewing Trabant is an electric car called the nT (New Trabi). A prototype of the vehicle was revealed at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt on September 15, 2009. It runs on a lithium-ion battery, achieves a maximum speed of 90 mph and travels 100 miles without a recharge. According to Herpa, the battery can be recharged overnight by using a regular power network at a cost of roughly one euro (or $1.40.)
Herpa says the response to changing the Trabant into a trendy, energy-saving vehicle has been overwhelmingly positive. The company handed out 7,000 questionaires at last year’s automobile exhibition in Frankfurt; 98 percent of those surveyed “wanted a modernized Trabant to return to the market,” according to the company.
“The nT should become a fun electric car, which is handy and has a historic background at that,” said its designer Nils Paschwatta.
The new Trabant will come equipped with a feature for those nostalgic for the old days: artificial engine noise, the volume of which can be selected by the customer.
Here are some of the stories we would have missed recently if we did not go directly to the sites owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
The imminent Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie break-up. According to a story in Sunday’s New York Post, Brangelina are going to split (yet again). A new book claims that Pitt’s marijuana addiction and Jolie’s psychological instability will lead them to part ways sooner than later. The couple are arguing day and not, says Ian Halperin in “Brangelina: The Untold Story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.”
More serious minded readers would have not had the opportunity to read this piece on deficits by Karl Rove, a man who has some experience with deficits.
Tareq and Michaele Salahi not only managed to weave their way into photos with the most prominent of American political luminaries and snag some first-class grub, they also have accomplished something which most of us never have: two Wikipedia entries in a week. (However, there is a debate on Wikipedia to merge the two Salahi entries into one.)
Of Mr. Salahi we read: Tareq is the son of Israeli-born Palestinian parents, Dirgham & Corinne Salahi. Tareq is a graduate of the University of California, Davis. He is an accomplished polo player and, prior to a bitter family fued that bankrupted the operation, was the CEO & owner of Oasis Winery.”
In Mrs Salahi entry we discover that she “Michaele Salahi is a former model and Washington Redskins cheerleader who has been featured in numerous television spots, was the face of Virginia.org’s Wine Getaways ad campaign, and has been featured in O, Gourmet, Conde Nast Traveller, Home & Garden, The New Yorker, Vogue, Elle, Victoria’s Secret amongst others.”
Wikipedia also mentions a long list of notable individuals who attended their wedding and says that the Salahis are no strangers to controversy.
Sarah Palin’s new book Going Rogue: An American Life, released on November 17th, is just one of the highlights of a literary season marked by riveting works from some of the country’s premier Republican authors. Still the Alaska politician’s tome stands out in a season which will also see the printing of James Baker’s long-awaited futuristic fantasy trilogy, Donald Rumsfeld’s translation of 17th century Japanese haikus and Alan Greenspan’s Mary Had a Diminutive, Quadrupedal, Ruminant Mammal and Other Nursery Rhymes.
Demonstrating the trademark urbanity and maturity that have encapsulated her young and vibrant writing career to this point, Palin delves deeply and agilely — with what one might describe as Qualyean verve mixed with Fitzwateresque nuance — into age-old and contemporary themes which have confronted and given pause to conservative-leaning writers for generations. Palin deftly uses the metaphor of the moose throughout the book to drive home her point, as evidenced here on page 123: “The plane approached steadily towards a meandering moose. I nodded to Todd to hand me my rifle. I shot that moose dead. We carved out its meat and had moose burgers for dinner.” Close followers of Palin’s writing will instantly recognize the significance of the moose as symbolizing the feebleness of various liberal issues that plague society – education, clean air, negotiation – and which must be eradicated henceforth.
Then again on page 238: “Todd and I were coming home in the van from a hockey game on a cold January night in Wasilla. We saw a moose meandering near our driveway. I nodded to Todd to hand me my rifle. I shot that moose dead. We carved out its meat and had moose burgers for dinner.” Once more, aficionados of the former governor and vice-presidential candidate’s oeuvre will notice instantly this Palinian literary device of using the moose to represent the myriad of menaces posed by the American left: religious enlightenment, habeas corpus, the right to see a doctor when ill.
All great works of Republican literature center around strong, stable family characters, the type which would never dream of soliciting gay sex at an airport men’s room, and Palin’s work is no exception. We see the solid, steady influences of the Palins who, in one scene, attend a religious ceremony where they are blessed by a witch hunter, who encourage one of their daughters, a young teenage mother, to separate from the baby’s father mere weeks after giving birth, and who show that the best way an elected official can lead by example is to quit by example – without providing any reason for his or her sudden departure from public life.
What makes the Palin book so remarkable for a great work of fiction is that the protagonist experiences no hubris. Rather the fortunes of the heroine (also named Sarah) continue to climb. From a humble upbringing in rural Alaska, we witness the central character, comely yet bookish – though we know not what she reads – rise in meteoric fashion from small-town beauty queen to nearly becoming the second most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world, all within the span of a half-dozen pages. Whereas such as scenario would have seemed implausible in the hands of an average scribe, Palin’s expert storytelling ability make the tale sound believable.
What next for Palin? Surely her readership (or “literary base” in the Republican publishing vernacular) will be clanging for more after this spellbinding work, desperate to know what will happen to the lead character. The story ends with a land called America, home of all that used to be noble, honest and right, besieged by hateful, heinous forces who are determined not to relinquish their grasp on power for at least another three years. Its people have been maliciously hypnotized by an audacious message of hope. When in fact, as Sarah and the silent majority which truly believe know, this message of hope is a false prophesy.
Will Sarah manage to convince the brainwashed masses back to believing in what is noble, honest and right and lead the forces of good against the evil liberal scourge which rules the land? It is a daunting task, an epic struggle to be sure. No other Republican fictional characters have been able to capture the imagination of such a wide sector of the American public as those in a Palin novel. If any contemporary conservative writer is up to the challenge, then it is Palin through her all-powerful, omniscient title character.
For those of you keeping score at home, this might be a first.
In the thousands of interviews Larry King has conducted in his decades-long career, one thing he has not done is solidify a reputation as a tough questioner. Guests frequently go on his show to find a sympathetic ear and to redeem themselves in the face of a scandal or public backlash.
Carrie Prejean thinks otherwise, it is clear today, of Mr King. The former Miss California and author was flabbergasted by King’s questions as to why she agreed to settle with the Miss USA pageant. Prejean deemed the questions ‘inappropriate’. King persisted. Then Prejean, speaking to someone off-camera and personally defining the meaning of a ‘pregnant pause’, decided to walk away.
The incident consequently sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy.
