If you have spent any time here in the former East Germany, you undoubtedly know about the Trabant. I took the picture above on the streets of Dresden this morning. It got me thinking… Is this a glimpse of the future for GM?
Here is how Time described this ill-fated, government conceived automobile when naming it one of the 50 worst cars of all time:
This is the car that gave Communism a bad name. Powered by a two-stroke
pollution generator that maxed out at an ear-splitting 18 hp, the
Trabant was a hollow lie of a car constructed of recycled worthlessness
(actually, the body was made of a fiberglass-like Duroplast, reinforced
with recycled fibers like cotton and wood). A virtual antique when it
was designed in the 1950s, the Trabant was East Germany’s answer to the
VW Beetle — a “people’s car,” as if the people didn’t have enough to
worry about. Trabants smoked like an Iraqi oil fire, when they ran at
all, and often lacked even the most basic of amenities, like brake
lights or turn signals. But history has been kind to the Trabi.
Thousands of East Germans drove their Trabants over the border when the
Wall fell, which made it a kind of automotive liberator. Once across
the border, the none-too-sentimental Ostdeutschlanders immediately
abandoned their cars. Ich bin Junk!
I think I have to agree with Glenn Beck’s assessment of the future for GM under government control:
What kind of innovation can we expect from
“Government Motors”? With people who’ve never run a business, like
Barney Frank, in charge, we may be setting ourselves up to repeat
another part of history: We could all be driving the same car, kind of
like East Germany’s Trabant or the old Soviet Union’s Lada.
I agree with your assessment. There was a great OP ED in yesterday’s WSJ written by a former communist car czar, “What I Learned as a Car Czar ” by ION MIHAI PACEPA. It goes into more details about the Trabent.
However there might be an entrepreneurial silver lining to this. Once Govt. Motors start producing these pieces of junk perhaps aftermarket specialty shops will spring up. Their mission would be to install the features the consumers really wants on these cars.
Why is the government giving up on auto technology. They have just slashed significant money out of the budget for fuel cell auto technology. This is very frustrating for those in R & D.
I remember the Trabant. I did take a ride on one, too.
Yes, a “bad car”, and if the Times said so, it must be true.
It must also be said that when an 18 years old dies in the USA, in 90% of cases he was driving some super fast V8 car.
The insurers are then left to pick up the pieces.
Insurance prices for 18 year olds have gone up so much that kids often have to get a job just to pay for their insurance and their loans so they can have a car that they can then possibly die on.
American kids are oh so much luckier than their DDR counterparts were and much cooler too on their V8 cars.
“It must also be said that when an 18 years old dies in the USA, in 90% of cases he was driving some super fast V8 car.” – I’m going to have to disagree with that, a lot. If you research the cause of auto accidents, having a V8 engine is not in the top of the list.
Regarding GM’s future, it does not look good. I am replying to this article after a lot has already happened with GM, but their effectiveness as an auto company has continued to decline. GM has very good engineers who can produce some excellent vehicles. Unfortunately, these quality engineers are being directed by people who don’t seem to have a clue what they’re doing. GM dug themselves into a deep hole over a long period of time due to bad business practices and not knowing to how analyze the market. They don’t seem to be currently doing any better either.
There were a lot of contributing factors with GM, but they really only have themselves to blame in the end.