| Connect to share and comment |
Karoline DurrNovember 10, 2009 07:35Updated May 30, 2010 13:12
The Trabant: An East German marvel makes a comeback
Want your own "little Sputnik?" You may soon get the chance.
Want your own "little Sputnik?" You may soon get the chance.
Even so, East Germans had to wait up to 15 years to get their hands on a Trabant. Some 3 million cars were made before production stopped in April 1991. Some 40,000 are still registered in Germany today.
The old Trabant had one green credential: The body was made of a material called Duroplast — a resin plastic reinforced by waste cotton from Russia — making it the first mass produced vehicle to use recycled organic materials.
So why would people buy a new and greener version, 20 years after unification? “ I would buy a new improved Trabant,” said Sabine Anton, a filmmaker, who left East Berlin two years before the Wall came down. “At least something of East Germany would survive."
There is even a word for those looking to cash in on warm feelings for the old German Democratic Republic: Ostalgie, which combines the German words for east (ost) and nostalgia (nostalgie). A recent poll showed that 20 years after unification, 57 percent of East Germans are defending the old system of the GDR, saying there was more good than bad about it.
And that may include — its investors hope, anyway — a new boxy car with a proud old name.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/commerce/091104/trabant-east-germany-car
.
-
Photo
Jaume Plensa's "Tel Aviv Man" at Art Basel, the world’s premier trade fair for leading galleries and collectors focused on modern and contemporary art.
- [/] -
Photo
The front of the Art Basel building. This year’s show attracted 303 of the world’s top galleries from 36 countries, showing the works of more than 2,500 artists. It drew more than 62,000 visitors, a new record.
- [/] -
Photo
Platform Gallery's Chen Wei and one of his "Recovery Room" series at Liste Young Artist's show. By the time the week was over he had sold more than 10 works, with prices ranging from $1,800 to nearly $3,000.
- [/] -
Photo
A performance spectator admires some of the pieces at Basel Art.
- [/] -
Photo
A performance piece at Basel Scope, done by an unidentified nearly naked man who moved in slow motion up and down the aisles dressed like a Greek version of Mars, the god of war.
- [/] -
Photo
A performance piece at Scope. The man clutched a staff, on which a plastic container for motor oil with the BP logo was impaled.
- [/] -
Photo
An installation piece at Basel Art.
- [/] -
Photo
An installation piece with paper tubes at Basel Art.
- [/] -
Photo
A gallery scene at the Scope Basel show.
- [/] -
Photo
A sculpture of Sperone Westwater Gallery's employee, Michael Short, by Evan Penny.
- [/] -
Photo
Evan Penny's sculpture of Michael Short.
- [/] -
Photo
A woman views Jaume Plensa's "Tel Aviv Man," (Study) 2010, Galerie Lelong, Paris.
- [/] -
Photo
"Medusa marinara," 1997 — a photographic representation of the Medusa in spaghetti and tomato sauce by New York-based Brazilian artist, Vic Muniz.
- [/] -
Photo
Children play around Ai Weiwei's piece, "Field," 2010.
- [/] -
Photo
Heimo Sobernig's "Black Cube" sits on display outside outside.
- [/] -
Photo
A piece by Yayoi Kusama titled "Pumkin."
- [/]
Follow us: