The Trabant (or Trabi) was a series of cars built in the German Democratic Republic. When the first cars were released, people saw them as being innovative. The cars were also easy on fuel, they did not need much fuel. Trabant had a two-stroke engine. Trabants were not made with steel or iron, because the German Democratic Republic did not want to import steel and iron for the cars, because that would have been too expensive. Instead, the Trabant was made of Duroplast, a special kind of plastic, made by mixing formica and bakelite, and made stronger with fibres of cotton. After the Berlin Wall was opened the Trabant did not sell as much as before, because the people wanted bigger cars that they could get after the wall was opened. Trabants can still be found in East Europe, for example in Hungary.

The Trabant was a small car, good for driving in the city. Because it was made of plastic it was not very safe in a crash, and the two-stroke engine created lots of air pollution. Between 1957 and 1990, about 3 million Trabants were built. As of January 2005, about 67.000 such cars were still registered.

(from Wikipedia)