18. The Trabant car was so popular you could wait up to 15 years to get one
The GDR excelled at producing low-cost goods with questionable quality. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Trabant car. Incredibly, VEB Sachsenring made the Trabant’s shell from recycled plastic. Nicknamed the ‘cardboard racer’, the Trabant traveled slowly and made a lot of noise. They had no air conditioning, fuel gauge or indicator lights. Most were sold to East Germans, but VEB Sachsenring exported some outside the GDR. Since they had a state monopoly, the company didn’t bother to change the Trabant’s design. Demand never wavered: people joined waiting lists of 15 years to get a new one.