Would You Drive These Disasters? The 45 Worst Cars of All Time

Trabant Was a Slow-Motion Disaster

When the Berlin Wall went up, Germany split in two—West Germany had Volkswagen and the Beetle, while East Germany had… the Trabant. Built in 1957, this smoky little disaster was East Germany’s attempt at affordable transportation, but it was more of a punishment than a privilege.

It had a two-stroke engine that sounded like a lawnmower having an asthma attack and coughed out enough smoke to cause its own weather system. The body? Not metal—Duroplast, a weird plastic made from recycled materials. The features? What features? There was no fuel gauge, no modern engineering, and zero charm. Even worse, the waiting list was up to 10 years long.

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