Trabant crowned Car of the Year

The new Trabant has won the coveted New Car of the Year award at a glitzy showbiz event at Earls Court.

Beating off strong competition from the BMW's new Mini, the Trabant is the latest example of an old "classic" being ripped off and sold at twenty times its original price to people who would never have bought the original but want to own an "icon".

Popularly known as the "Trabbi", the original car was built between 1955 and 1989 in Communist East Germany, and was considered well and truly consigned to the dustbin of history after the Berlin Wall came down thirteen years ago. However, ever since the recent invention of irony, the Trabbi has gained cult status among trendy media types and naive lefties, most of whom are too young or stoned to remember the Cold War or the repressive and bankrupt Stalinist government that originally dreamed up this "Peoples Car".

The New Trabbi DeLuxe costs £12,000.

The old Trabbi was a basic car, universally regarded as "extremely nasty" even when new. Built by state-owned VEB, it was constructed mostly of fibreglass-substitute Duraplast and featured a smoky two-stroke engine that gave the car power levels similar to that of a lawnmower and a top speed of 30mph.

Utterly loathed by the captive East German population who were forced to buy the Trabant as nothing else was available, VEB surprised nobody by going very rapidly out of business when the Iron Curtain collapsed.

The new Trabant is based very closely on the look of the old model but has been re-jigged a bit to turn it into a comfortable and stylish luxury cruiser. It now features a three-litre V6 engine, six-speed gearbox, anti-lock brakes, electric windows, side-impact protection, sunroof, cruise control, satellite navigation systems, cup-holders, metallic paint, DVD-player, twenty-three airbags, child-proof locks, flexible seating layouts, holograms, dancing bears and full air-conditioning. Prices start at £12,000, an increase of around 12,000 per cent on the value of the old car.

The makers of the new model have faced accusations from some quarters that their product is no more than an over-priced imitation of the original cheap and economical workers car. Answering this charge yesterday, a spokesman for UK importers Honeckers insisted that "the spirit of the Trabant lives on, though we had to update some of the more basic features. Most of our customers are TV producers and lawyers, and when they spend in excess of £18,000 on the flagship XiTGii model they expect certain luxuries. Anyway, look at the new Mini and Beetle. They're nothing like the originals and it hasn't hurt their profits."

The new Trabbi has already won a series of awards for its highly original TV advertising campaign. In one ad, entitled "The Bulgarian Job", a mulleted German porn star with a big moustache leads a convoy of Trabants at speeds in excess of 35mph around the grim concrete streets of Sofia chased by Stasi officials in Skodas after carrying off a daring bread heist.

Mature rock band U2, who gained world-wide acclaim when they invented irony in 1991, announced their discovery by featuring large numbers of old Trabbis in their songs and live shows. The launch of the new car was warmly welcomed yesterday by lead singer Bono, who very kindly agreed to give us an interview from the balcony of his Vatican retreat.

2002 promises to be a bumper year for fans of rehashed auto-cack, with the new-look Austin Allegro and Model T Ford both hitting showrooms in August.