by Alan Douglas (31 Dec 07)

Given the option, a 25bhp, two-cylinder, two stroke-engined plastic car would not be my transport of choice . . . but it was too good an opportunity to miss.

For this was one of the survivors of the Cold War - a genuine 20-year old Trabant 601, one of the three million built by the East German car maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Saxony with little or no design or technical changes over more than 30 years from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In its time it was the most common vehicle in East Germany, not least because it was virtually all that was available behind the Iron Curtain. Even if you could afford one, it could often take years for it to be delivered, and as a result, most owners took very good care of their pride and joy so that the average lifespan of a Trabant was 28 years and used ones would often fetch a higher price than new.

But here I was at the wheel of one which had been round the Eastern Bloc quite a few times after being registered in Dresden and now plying a trade as one of the more unusual tourist attractions in Berlin.

The Trabant Safaris have proved hugely popular since they started a couple of years ago and they are certainly a different and more adventurous way to see the once-divided city. The formula is simple. You pay your fee - €25 each if there are four of you, €35 each for two - and after a very brief bit of instruction on the basic, but quirky, four-gear column shift, the rules are straightforward. In our case, my wife and I were the last in a line of five Trabants with the lead car containing the female guide who talked to each of us through a radio barking out from the dashboard.

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