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| In Romania, a Trabant's 26 hp. engine gets a three-kid-power push outside Dracula's castle. Courtesy of Trabant Trek |
On the road – from Germany to Cambodia – in a communist jalopy
Towed by camels and laughed at by pedestrians, the lowly Trabant is a modern-day Marco Polo for a good cause.
By Tibor Krausz | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 3, 2008 edition
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Bangkok, Thailand - Move over, Herbie; here come the new stars of overachieving motorized underdogs. Hear them roar! OK, cough, wheeze, and sputter.
Meet Ziggy, Fez, and Dante – intrepid globetrotters, all three. Well, strictly speaking, only two remain: Dante gave up the ghost in Laos.
The decrepit champs are Trabants – "the worst car of all time" as autophiles label the infamous Soviet-era rattletrap; or "a piece of junk," as disgruntled owners used to put it across the former Soviet bloc, where the vehicle was once ubiquitous.
Yet a half century after its unveiling and two decades after its production ceased, the much-maligned car has finally proved its mettle.
Ziggy and Fez, with Dante an honorary also-ran, just completed a punishing, six-month transcontinental journey, from Germany to Cambodia, in a feat rivaling the adventures of Marco Polo. (Well ... in distance covered.)
The lowly auto owes its new prestige to Trabant Trek – an expedition meant to raise money for street kids in Cambodia. The worthy humanitarian cause also came with an automotive benefit – helping the derided little car prove that it could.
The team of four Americans and four Europeans (from England, Spain, and Hungary) drove their long-suffering jalopies across Central Europe to Turkey, then across Central Asia, on through Siberia, Mongolia, and China before limping wearily, via Laos and Thailand, into Cambodia in February.
It took them 173 days, 16,000 miles ,and countless breakdowns.
"The stress of driving in this car," admits John Drury, a linchpin of the expedition, made him constantly want to quit. "My knees are up here touching the steering wheel," explains the 6-foot, 3-inch bartender, from Bethesda, Md., as he squeezes into the tubby little driver's seat behind a plastic toy-like wheel. He faces a jittery odometer and three plastic switches.
Then again, he adds, you can just knock your seat back and drop into an exhausted sleep – in the Gobi Desert, say.
Mr. Drury and Tony Perez, a teammate from Virginia, were recently in Bangkok for a visit before driving back to Cambodia, where a local artist wants to convert the Trabants into exhibits.
Inviting a reporter along for a joyride, Drury exclaims, "Let's roll!" only to discover that the gas has evaporated from the unsealed tanks. Wearily the Americans leg it to a gas station.
On the road, the Trabants, bearing spare tires like panniers, are instant celebrities. Motorists flash thumbs up signs. Pedestrians tap the cars with bemused curiosity. Tourists snap pictures of the weird contraptions.
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