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Brits take Eastern bloc cars ‘ home’ to celebrate the Berlin Wall’s fall

Atotal of 120 Cold War classics – 11 of which drove all the way from the UK – paraded through Berlin on 9 November to commemorate the German capital’s reunification.

Nine Trabants and two Wartburgs from the Wartburg Trabant IFA Club were part of a privately organised celebration of the Wall’s toppling; they joined other East German cars, along with Ladas, Tatras, Volgas and Barkas survivors from all over Europe on a police-supported tour of historic Berlin locations.

Two-stroke vehicles are usually banned from Berlin under environmental grounds, but exceptions were made for the Berlin Wall celebrations. Wartburg Trabant IFA Club chairman, Mel Holley, said: ‘It was like a dream come true. The air was thick with two-stroke vapour just like it was in 1989; normally you can’t drive Trabis in Berlin, but my car came from Berlin and we may not get the chance again.

‘The police were magnificent – they took us through red lights on a big circular run around the city.’

Starting and finishing at Berlin’s historic East side gallery, the tour halted at several important locations, including the Siegssäule victory column and the former border at Bornholmer Straße, one of the first east-west crossings to re-open on 9 November 1989.

The event coincided with other Berlin Wall celebrations taking place that day, including a gathering at the former German border village of Mödlareuth, a commemoration in Pavel Banya, Bulgaria, and the 13th annual Trabant parade at the International Spy Museum in New York. wp.ifaclub.co.uk

Cars came from Switzerland, France and Belgium; the British group also visited the old Checkpoint Alpha on the A2 autobahn and the former BRIXMIS Mission House in Potsdam. Two-strokes are not normally allowed in the centre of Berlin.