Two-stroke engines, four decades of waiting lists, and the ultimate communist status symbol.
A cinematic, character-driven insight to what it meant to produce and to own a car in communist times: the Socialist propaganda dreams and the hard reality of living that dream. The freedom that these slow and clumsy vehicles were giving to their owners; the cars as an instrument in the Cold War battle; legends and homemade tune-ups as an attempt to stand at least a little bit off the crowd.
Direction
Directors grew up in communist Bulgaria—this is personal archaeology
Production
Archive footage of Honecker and Brezhnev drooling over cars
Practical Effects
Actual Trabant restorations shot with loving detail
Director
Georgi Bogdanov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Trabant's Duroplast body was made from recycled cotton waste and phenol resin—essentially compressed trash.
East Germans joked the Trabant came in any color you wanted, as long as it was 'racing white' or 'papyrus white'—the only shades the factory produced.
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