Like a Rock, But That's Only the Acceleration

Piaggio has a Ferrari. A magazine whose name we forget has Jaguars. Every third booth has a gleaming Harley, now that Harleys are ridden by middle-class empty-nesters rather than tattooed 300-pound people named Snake (and that was just the women).

But Lufthansa Technik (Booth 2341) has a Trabant, and search as we might, we did not find another Trabant on show here.

Built in the former East Germany, the Trabi is a four-wheeled symbol of why Karl Marx was wrong. The tinny, cramped Trabi was propelled at bicycle speeds (zero-to-sixty within the current Five Year Plan) by a smoke-belching two-stroke that sounded like something that had washed down bad tacos with a case of Bud Lite. After reunification, the Trabis were loosed on the autobahns, where they stood as much chance as Barney in the raptor pit.

This particular specimen was repainted in Lufthansa blue-and-yellow by apprentices at Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg completion facility. Its principal value resides in Niki Lauda's signature, on the hood. Why is it here? To drive home the lesson that Lufthansa Technik will deliver your airplane in much less than the 17 years that the citizens of the people's paradise had to wait for a Trabi.

By Bill Sweetman