When the Wall came down, they rolled across the border in droves: Trabant, Wartburg & Co. After that, many East Germans couldn't get rid of the plainly designed GDR cars with their smelly two-stroke engines fast enough. The longing for modern automobiles from the West was too great. But 35 years after the GDR disappeared, the vehicles are now back in high demand as classic cars.
Collectors are paying up to €7,000 for a Trabant 601 in pristine original condition - more than twice as much as in 2018, according to market observation data from Classic Data. The Bochum-based company specializes in value analyses on the classic car market. Today, the Wartburg 353 saloon costs almost 10,000 euros in top condition. It has also at least doubled in value in seven years - depending on its condition.
