Summary
The iconic East German car dominated the roads of communist Central Europe for decades. The Trabant was made out of resin and cotton waste, had a two-stroke engine and its design remained virtually unchanged for thirty years. Johannes Dell has been hearing from legendary German designer Karl Clauss Dietel who worked for years to make improvements to the Trabant - but his innovations were never implemented.
(Photo: a Trabant 601. Credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. You listening to the BBC World Service and now witness history with me Johannes Dell. |
| 0:46.0 | Today we return to 1991 the year that marked the end of the production line |
| 0:51.0 | for one of the world's most iconic vehicles, the East German Trabant. |
| 0:56.0 | First built in the 1960s, it dominated the roads of Communist Central Europe. |
| 1:01.0 | By the time the Berlin Wall came down, three million vehicles had been made, |
| 1:05.0 | still built with the same boxy design and mostly still rattling along on their smoky two-stroke |
| 1:11.0 | engines. But it could all have been so different. I've been speaking to the |
| 1:16.2 | legendary designer Carl Klaus Dietel who spent 20 years developing a modern Trabant all in vain. |
| 1:23.0 | Four trimful with a trabant six hundred eins. |
| 1:26.0 | It was East Germany's answer to the Volkswagen Bietel, the GDR's own people's car. |
| 1:35.0 | When they, snell, |
| 1:39.0 | hmm, |
| 1:41.0 | house-to-ant and robust. |
| 1:42.0 | Mobile quick, lasting and robust and |
| 1:45.0 | a 1960s TV Advert praised the Toban 601 as a trusty companion. |
| 1:51.0 | By the end of its long life, its reputation was rather different. |
| 1:55.7 | With its sluggish engine stubby shape and wobbly bodywork, it looked more like a toy than a car. |
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