It featured detachable duroplast body panels on a galvanised steel unibody chassis, front-wheel drive, a transverse two-stroke engine, and independent suspension.

[4] Older models have been sought by collectors in the United States due to their low cost and fewer restrictions on the importation of antique cars.

It came to symbolise the country during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as images of East Germans crossing the border into West Germany were broadcast around the globe.

Contemporary gas stations in countries where two-stroke engines were common sold a premixed gas-oil mixture at the pump.

Known for its dull colour scheme and cramped, uncomfortable ride, the Trabant is an object of ridicule for many Germans and is regarded as symbolic of the fall of the Eastern Bloc.

[20] In contrast, the West German Volkswagen Beetle received a number of updates (including improvements in efficiency) over a similar period.

[21] VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau had its origins in the former Auto Union/DKW business which had operated out of the site prior to the war, and the company's first products were essentially copies of pre-war DKW designs.

It was a relatively advanced car when it was formally introduced the following year, with front wheel drive, unitary construction and independent suspension.

It was technically equivalent to the West German Lloyd automobile, a similarly sized car with an air-cooled, two-cylinder four-stroke engine.

Its greatest drawback was its largely unchanged production; the car's two-stroke engine made it obsolete by the 1970s, limiting exports to Western Europe.

Wartburg, an East German manufacturer of larger sedans, also used a water-cooled, three-cylinder, 1,000 cc (61 cu in), two-stroke DKW engine.

Each proposal for a new model was rejected by the East German government due to shortages of the raw materials required in larger quantities for the more-advanced designs.

In mid-1989, thousands of East Germans began loading their Trabants with as much as they could carry and drove to Hungary or Czechoslovakia en route to West Germany–the so-called "Trabi Trail".

The first prototypes were built in 1988, with pre-series cars appearing in 1989, but series production only began in May 1990 - By which time the two German states had already agreed to reunification.

[24] The model, the Trabant 1.1, also had minor improvements to its brake and signal lights, a renovated grille, and MacPherson struts instead of a leaf-spring-suspended chassis.

The Zwickau factory in Mosel (where the Trabant was manufactured) was sold to Volkswagen AG; the rest of the company became HQM Sachsenring GmbH.

Unlike the Lada Niva, Škoda Estelle, Polski Fiat (design licensed from the Italian car manufacturer) and Yugo, the Trabant had negligible sales in Western Europe.

[29] Former Bulgarian Foreign Minister and Atlantic Club of Bulgaria founding president Solomon Passy owned a Trabant which was blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2002 and in which he took NATO Secretaries General Manfred Wörner, George Robertson, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for rides.

The event, sponsored by the privately owned International Spy Museum, includes street tours in Trabants, rides, live German music and displays about East Germany.

[39] The Trabant nT electric car would be equipped with a 45 kW (60 hp; 61 PS) asynchronous motor powered by a lithium-ion battery.