Pimp My Reunification?

Half VW Golf II, half Trabant 601, the reunification vehicle Gobbi was the brainchild of an Internet car market. But is it an appropriate symbol of unity for a car-crazed nation, or a minotaur for the modern age?

To make Gobbi, two cars -- the legendary Trabi from the eastern town of Zwickau with its plastic body and two-stroke engine and the VW from the western city of Wolfsburg -- were purchased over the Internet, then cut down the middle and soldered together to make a new, if unusual, entity.

Unequal parts

Gobbi may have been created in the name of unity, but workers couldn't help commenting on their separate-but-unequal components.

"The band-saw went through the Trabi like butter," said Jens Schüren, who worked on the car. "In 10 minutes we had hacked the car in two. The Golf was a bit tougher. It took us three quarters of an hour to get through the central column."

The work was done at Motoraver Werkstatt near Hamburg, a garage whose usual business involves modifying cars by souping up engines or customizing paint jobs.

The Golf was used to make the front half of Gobbi, while the Trabi got to take up the rear. While the car was successfully soldered together, its completion begs the question: Was it a commentary on the fact that the western states remain the country's economic "motor" while the east still lags behind?

Technical considerations

Its makers say no, and point to practical considerations.

"Technically it made better sense this way," Schüren said. "The Golf is 24 centimeters (9.4 inches) wider than the Trabi, and Gobbi just looked better if the narrower part was at the back. Also, the used Trabi they bought had a dented front end, while the Golf had a ding in its rear."

People more interested in politics than power shafts may want to know: Is Gobbi just a case of car freaks having some Franken-fun, or does the thing actually function?

"Of course, it drives," Schüren said. But like some other big experiments in unification, all the bugs have yet to be worked out. For example, the car still hasn't passed official inspection.

"Getting it through inspection would have taken too much time and money," he said.

Tell it to Berlin.