I seem to recall Trabants were as good as any car in the FRG, but there was another brand of car in the GDR, a step below the Trabant, that really was kinda shit. But tbf they were trying to make cars for everyone and at that time in places like the UK and France, there were plenty of now-defunct car companies that made shit cars, too. It was pretty typical of the car industry globally at that time.
And I also want to quality, I'm just an American who reads about stuff. I could definitely be wrong on some things here.
I went to the Trabant museum in Chemnitz once. It was pretty cool. They had displays set up with little vignettes of GDR life, like camping, etc. Too bad it's not a good idea to post the picture of myself "driving" a Trabant. I'm still not totally sure it was OK for me to get in the car at the museum, but my friend was a local and was like, get in, get in, I'll take your picture!
The Trabant really was kinda shit. I think you confuse it with the Wartburg, which was an updated 30s DKW. Decent car but really old school. The Trabant was more like a moped car.
Most cars made in East Germany (and for that matter, the Soviet Union) were made cheap, and if you compare them to Western cars at a similar price point they're of comparable quality. But since a communist car has to be imported its price gets inflated and it ends up getting compared to cars that cost two or three times as much money to make - of course it's going to come out looking bad.
I seem to recall Trabants were as good as any car in the FRG, but there was another brand of car in the GDR, a step below the Trabant, that really was kinda shit. But tbf they were trying to make cars for everyone and at that time in places like the UK and France, there were plenty of now-defunct car companies that made shit cars, too. It was pretty typical of the car industry globally at that time.
And I also want to quality, I'm just an American who reads about stuff. I could definitely be wrong on some things here.
I went to the Trabant museum in Chemnitz once. It was pretty cool. They had displays set up with little vignettes of GDR life, like camping, etc. Too bad it's not a good idea to post the picture of myself "driving" a Trabant. I'm still not totally sure it was OK for me to get in the car at the museum, but my friend was a local and was like, get in, get in, I'll take your picture!
The Trabant really was kinda shit. I think you confuse it with the Wartburg, which was an updated 30s DKW. Decent car but really old school. The Trabant was more like a moped car.
Most cars made in East Germany (and for that matter, the Soviet Union) were made cheap, and if you compare them to Western cars at a similar price point they're of comparable quality. But since a communist car has to be imported its price gets inflated and it ends up getting compared to cars that cost two or three times as much money to make - of course it's going to come out looking bad.
Great point.