Trabant

Also known as Trabi

Cause of death

Killed by indifference

Made by

VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau

Once the inner-German border opened, East Germans abandoned the Trabant for West German cars and demand collapsed.

For 34 years the Trabant carried East Germany on a fume-belching two-stroke engine of the sort that powers a cheap lawn mower, and 3,096,099 of them were built at Zwickau. When the Berlin Wall opened, the drivers who had waited years for one switched to Western cars fast enough that thousands of Trabis were left abandoned and burned out in the countryside. The last car, painted a striking pink, rolled off the Sachsenring line on 30 April 1991 before a crowd of about 3,600, ending a century of independent vehicle manufacturing in eastern Germany.