The Trabant, the smoke-spewing communist car whose coughing two-stroke engine has been compared to a death rattle, is celebrating its 50th birthday and east Germans are preparing for a year of nostalgic road pollution.

“We’re calling on Trabi owners everywhere to join in the festivities,” says Katrin Marquardt, of Citynet, the marketing organisation for Dessau, one of several cities planning parties, rallies and exhibitions.

Only Berlin is not paying due tribute to the Cold War relic. It is banning Trabants — 52,432 are still registered — from the centre of the capital. “We all have to make our contribution to preventing climate catastrophe,” a city spokesman said.

His concern is justified. Although its spluttering engine is barely stronger than a lawn-mower, it remains one of the dirtiest small cars ever devised.

The car is a freak. It started to roll off the production lines of East Germany in 1957 as the communists’ answer to the Volkswagen Beetle. That was the year that the Soviet Union launched a Sputnik into space and the two were billed as the onset of a modern, scientifically advanced socialism.

The reality was that the car had primitive brakes, no fuel pump and no oil filter. Instead of a fuel gauge it had a dip-stick. Wise drivers carried not only a spare wheel but also a spare engine.

Because there was a steel shortage, it was made from compressed cotton waste held together with a phenol-based resin. An original plan to build it out of compressed cardboard foundered after the test model was left out in the rain: it was the first soggy car in history.

But despite the flaws, waiting lists for the car ran up to 14 years. As a result it held its value for decades; the trick was to stockpile spare parts.

Now, 17 years after the fall of the East German state and the end of production, there are still 82 Trabi drivers’ clubs across Germany and they are being mobilised for the birthday parties.

One celebrant will be Werner Buhtz, an engineer who bought his first Trabi in 1964. “I remember how the front left wheel fell off as we were taking a corner,” he says. “The whole car threatened to topple to the right and roll on to the roof, so we all threw ourselves to one side to restore the balance. Pas-sers-by, familiar with the situation, held down the car until we could get out.” Then a second wheel fell off.

Such stories these are being collected and will form part of a birthday album for the car which still has a hold on the German soul — even if these days it is more likely to be used as a flower box or chicken coop than to try to go anywhere.

-How do you double the value of a Trabant?

Fill its petrol tank

-How do you treble its value?

Put a banana on the back seat

-How do you make a sports car out of a Trabi?

Put a pair of trainers in the boot

-Why does the Trabi have a heated rear window?

Keeps your hands warm while you push it

-Man in garage: Do you have two windscreen wipers for a Trabi?

Garage-owner thinks long and hard. “OK,” he says at last, “it’s a deal”

-Factory rings lucky East German on Trabi waiting list. “Comrade Schulz, you will get delivery of a Trabant in ten years time, on February 20, 1998”

Schulz: “Morning or afternoon? I have the plumber coming in the morning.”

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