More than 3 million Trabants were built in Zwikau, East Germany from 1957. Widely used throughout the communist bloc, they were renowned for the poor performance of their smoky and smelly 2-cylinder air-cooled engine. Much of the body was made from reclaimed material called Duraplast, combining Phenol Resin (a by-product of the dye industry) with wool or cotton waste, and sometimes even paper.

This car was licensed on the very day that the Berlin wall came down on 9th November 1989 after which the demand for Trabants virtually faded away overnight.