To see some living sunflowers, click on the dead one above which directs you to english-house, a holiday home in France which can be rented.

Plymouth to Dakar-2004

Trudi is a Trabant 601, first registered on 03.01.1990, so she is a very late model. She was originally beige but is now a fetching desert-friendly shade of pink. For me, having lived and worked in Berlin for the last thirteen years, there was only one choice of car. The estate version would have been useful but this was over our budget so we couldn't take too much luggage. Trabants became a media symbol after trundling through the Brandenburg Gate after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and are both loved and hated in Germany. Loved for the memories that they hold for many East Germans and hated for their two-stroke engines and the accompanying wall of sound and smoke. Trudi and I made our way from my home in Berlin to Godalming to pick up Andy and then went on a fund-raising week around England before the start. So even before the challenge proper got on the road, we had travelled over 1000 km!

For a very good history of the trabant, click on the `Betriebsanleitung´ picture above to see an article by L. Mallows

Trudi Trabant P 601 L

engine : 594 cc (smallest on the rally) power? : 24bhp at 4.200 rpm          kerb weight : 615 kg