Transportation How Do You Double the Value Of a Trabant? Fill 'Er Up! East Germans may have driven the car to freedom, but jokes about the "little stinker" sputter along

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

Small, snub nosed, slow and the product of Stalinist central planning, the Trabant is the ugly duckling of East Germany's roadways. The ubiquitous "Trabi" has not had its flaky Duraplast body redesigned since the first mass-production models rolled off the assembly line in 1964. Its motorcycle- size two-stroke engine coughs out more pollution than almost any other auto. Often the motor's two cylinders come on line one at a time until they sputter in unison in a puff of blue smoke, sounding uncannily like an ancient sewing machine.

But last year the Trabi suddenly became a vessel for revolution and liberty. First the car ferried cheering, champagne-drinking East German refugees to the West. Then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, joyous citizens of the Democratic Republic stuffed themselves into their Trabis and poured through border crossings for shopping sprees and dreams of reunification. The Trabant became the car a country rode to freedom. By all rights, it should be hailed as the little engine that could. But it really can't. In this fable, the ugly duckling finds love but stays ugly.

Once in the West, East Germans don't really want to hold on to their old cars. Of the 2,413 Trabis registered in West Germany, most are expected to be ditched for Volkswagens even as the drivers dream of Mercedes-Benz, Audis, BMWs and Porsches. And while Trabants account for less than 0.5% of the passenger cars in the Federal Republic, they have caused a stir. "Almost every day we get letters of complaint," says Bonn Environment Minister Klaus Topfer. "The Trabant is a nuisance."

In border towns residents complain of Trabi traffic jams every weekend as East Germans drive in for shopping. A study by Berlin's Technical University has shown that Trabants spew roughly nine times as many hydrocarbons and five times as much carbon monoxide as most other cars in Western Europe. Though some West Germans refer to the Trabi's distinctive mix of gas and oil smoke as "the smell of freedom," others are more direct. They call the Trabi the "little stinker."

It certainly isn't easy being a Trabi. Trabant jokes are now a national pastime in the Federal Republic, just as they have been in East Germany for decades. Some are flattering. "Why did Erich Honecker refuse to drive a Trabant? Because the brakes kept pulling to the West." But others simply pick on the helpless little car's shortcomings. "Why is the Trabant the world's quietest car to drive? Because your knees cover your ears."

Then there is the one about the customer who walks into a Trabi dealer. Says the customer: "I want a Trabi with a two-tone paint job."

Dealer: Yes, sir! It also comes with a turbocharged engine, antiskid braking, radial tires and a Blaupunkt stereo.

Customer: You're joking.

Dealer: Well, you started it!

Andreas Kippe of West Germany's ADAC Auto Club has a favorite. "How many workers does it take to build a Trabi? Answer: two, one to fold and one to paste." But Kippe says the ribbing is all part of West Germany's tough love for the ungainly auto. "Some of these jokes sound nasty," says Kippe, "but people who love each other make jokes about each other." In fact, ADAC's emergency service aids any Trabi in trouble, free of charge.

For all its awkwardness, the Trabant has aroused protective instincts in West Germany. Auto Zeitung magazine gave the Trabi honorary top billing in its 1989 test results, praising the car's "respect for the people who must live with it." A Trabi graced the centerfold of Autobild's "Best Autos of 1989" edition. The Frankfurter Allgemeine-Zeitung even compared the Trabant with the Porsche Carrera. Both, said the paper kindly, are "useful as getaway cars," but the Trabi has twice the Carrera's trunk space.

Soon, however, the Trabant that Germans both love and hate may be no more. In 1990 East Germany plans to begin producing Trabants fitted with cleaner, four-cylinder engines manufactured under a 1984 contract with Volkswagen. VW is also negotiating a joint venture to develop a successor to the Trabi.

Museums in Brunswick and Munich have bought some of the old clunkers to preserve what is perhaps the humblest symbol of one of the most extraordinary years in German history. Concluded Auto Motor und Sport: "The plain Beetle became a symbol of our economic miracle. The Trabant, its simple counterpart from the East, gave the first impulse to an even greater miracle." Proving, of course, that looks aren't everything.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Cynthia Davis

CAPTION: PUTT-PUTT-PUTT

With reporting by Ken Olsen/Bonn