The Berlin Wall has now been 'down' for longer than it was in place. Its failure at the end of the Eighties led to the reunification of Germany and a mass exodus of humanity into the West, but it was more than just people that crossed the border – the cars of East Germany came too, spluttering and smoking through the rubble of the Iron Curtain.

During the Cold War the West became a symbol of freedom, the East a byword for repression. While US servicemen had the run of West Germany in whatever glitzy automotive product out of Detroit took their fancy, the delights of personal mobility in the East took the form of the Trabant, commonly nicknamed “Trabbi”. It was cheap to build and run, but invariably only available to favoured Party members rather than the populace at large.

We’ve all heard the stories – the long waiting list after ordering, a dipstick instead of a proper petrol gauge, extra heating provided by a rug under the back seat. The image that springs to mind is of East Berlin streets choking with fumes from the two-stroke engines of Trabants. No point taking colour photos, because everything was so grey. But is that really so?