The idea of a new Trabant may not strike those who remember the original car as a particularly inspired idea.
But while the tiny, smoky old plastic Trabant was the poster child of communist East Germany – the GDR churned out three million of them between 1957 and 1991 – the new Trabant nT reflects a rather different world.
Instead of the wheezing old two-stroke engine, there’s a 45 kilowatt electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries that carries the Trabant nT to a claimed top speed of just over 80mph.
The Trabant nT has a pretty limited range, though. It’ll only do around 100 miles before needing more juice, although its makers argue that since the majority of daily car journeys in Germany are only around 30 miles long this won’t be a problem for the new Trabi. Hmm.
The technology under the skin might be new, but the looks of the Trabant nT remain true to its heritage, with a trapezoidal grille, wide-eyed headlights and vertical (and very 1950s-style) rear lights.
The task of the car’s creator (scale model maker Herpa) is now to turn the Trabant nT into a production vehicle by 2012, a project being undertaken with the help of small-car coachbuilder IndiKar.
Bizarre fact of the day? There are still 52,000 original Trabis on German roads.
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