The Trabant

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Make: Trabant

Model: 601 Limousine / Kombi

Year: Hmm… 1980… something?

Condition: Terrible

Price: US$60 (or best offer)

The Trabant is literally the worst car in the world. We’re not kidding. We may have begun the trip in July 2007 thinking it was a perfectly acceptable means of international transport. But 21 countries, six months and 300+ breakdowns later, each team member will attest that this automobile was perhaps not the ideal choice. On the plus side, it did attract more attention than anyone could have expected. 

Dead as a Dodo

Where to begin? For starters, the Trabant is completely out of production. It was made in Zwickau, East Germany, and due to the lack of competition that a Communist economy enjoys, the design of the car remained unchanged for almost 40 years, from 1957 to 1990. When the Berlin Wall fell it didn’t stand a chance competing with the Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen autos produced in the west, and the factory soon closed forever. Their reputation for falling apart and spewing a nosebleed-inducing exhaust smell made the little plastic cars dirt cheap. John Lovejoy and John Drury bought their first Trabant in 2006 for only 60 dollars!

But what exactly is a Trabant?

The Trabant has a two-stroke engine. Your lawnmower or inflatable dingy may share this character trait. Two-stroke means you mix oil into your gas in order to keep the engine from seizing – thus we had to lug around two 50-gallon drums of oil in our trunk. Its 26 horsepower engine is about as powerful as five blenders set to puree. The shell is made of plastic, or to be more specific, compressed cotton waste from the old Soviet bloc, with very little metal used in the actual frame of the car. Knowing that you’re essentially swathed in cotton isn’t a very comforting thought when you’re barreling down on a cow at 80 kph with shoddy drum brakes as your only means of stopping.

One grown man can lift the entire engine block by himself. It has limited moving parts and even fewer non-moving parts. However, it does require all these bare essentials to run. Repairs were simple as long as you had the replacements. But seeing as the car has been out of production for almost 20 years and had limited distribution potential outside Soviet Eastern Europe, those parts are in short supply. Especially in Central Asia, or the rest of the world for that matter, where prior to Trabant Trek 2007, the Trabant had never been seen.

On the Map

But now it has been seen, putting along the highways and byways, in countries all throughout Eastern Europe, Central, East and Southeast Asia, all the way from Germany to Cambodia. And this was the point. What is the challenge in driving a brand-new 4x4 around the world? Isn’t it better to select a car considered by many to be the worst automobile ever produced?

We thought so anyway… It took us a while, but our three Trabants were head-turners the entire way, and raised a lot of attention and money for street children worldwide and the charities dedicated to helping these underserved youths attain a brighter future. If you are interested in donating please contact us! Click here to go to the charities' website or simply sign up for one of the Nomadic Nation Treks to help continue the fundraising efforts that Trabant Trek began.