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Old German Car Named Trabant Turned into a Boat

Posted Thursday, October 30, 2008

Featured on Episode 7 of the 2008-2009 season

 

Almost 20 years ago, Germany was actually divided into two different countries. West Germany was a democracy like the United Sates. East Germany was a communist country and aligned with the former Soviet Union. The idea behind communism is interesting: we all share everything. But in order for that to work you need a really strong government that controls every aspect of life. That can be bad for innovation - so people in communist countries like East Germany didn't have the same technology that we in the west did. For decades, the Trabant was one of the few cars you could get in East Germany. Recently, three guys thought it might be cool to turn one of these now historic cars into a boat - the tra-boat, as they call it. Turing the car into a boat was pretty easy. All the guys did was take out the axles and attach seven oil barrels to the bottom so it would float.

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