Category: member news

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Bring Christmas Home – with a Trabant!

Club members have been enjoying the advert breaks a bit more than usual this Christmas thanks to Asda’s ‘Bring Christmas Home’ campaign.

Launched onto the small screen on 2 November, the 60-second ad starts with  Santa sending a flaming Christmas pudding into the air to summon a Christmas convoy of skiers, Santas on motor bikes, cowboys riding Christmas trees and – most importantly! – Trabant-driving Yetis – to pour down a snowy mountain laden with Asda festive goodies.

Asda’s Chief Customer Officer Andy Murray said: “We really wanted to hone in on a universal feeling about Christmas that people could relate to. The one thing we all kept coming back to was the sense of excitement that comes from preparing to bring your nearest and dearest together, how crazy and chaotic it can feel, but ultimately how all the effort results in something wonderful when you bring Christmas home.’

The ad was created by Caio Giannella and Diego de Oliveira of Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO,  and directed by Agustín Alberdi from the Stink production company.

We have reached out to Stink to ask where the inspiration for the Trabant came from but they are so far keeping their cards close to their chest. Maybe Agustín is a secret two-stroke fan!

  • watch more behind-the-scenes footage here.

 

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Your chance to meet writer David Young

Friend of the Club and owner of a Wartburg 353 in Volkspolizei livery, author David Young will be in conversation with Cold War expert Dr Richard Millington during this year’s Chester Literature Festival.

David will be speaking about his Stasi Child series and the in-depth research he carries out to explore the real-life stories that inspire his books.

Stasi Child, the first in the series featuring  Oberleutnant Karin Muller, was a  Times Crime Book of the Month and a Telegraph Pick of the Week, as well as winning  the 2016 CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger for best historical crime novel. Muller’s story continues in  Stasi Wolf and A Darker State. The fourth in the series, Stasi 77, is expected in early 2019.

Follow David on Twitter (@djy_writer) for more about his novels, and his Wartburg!

* David and Richard will be in conversation on Thursday 15 November at 6pm. The event is free but tickets need to be booked.

 

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Two Stroke Times dropping into an inbox near you

The Autumn 2018 issue of Two Stroke Times is hot off the press and heading for members’ inboxes.

The new issue’s 32 pages are packed with event write-ups, updates on members projects, technical tips, and possibly the best Trabant fancy-dress you will see this year, thanks to Club member Tony Robson who entered his car in the Isle of Lewis Carnival as ‘Kim Jong Un on holiday’, accompanied by bodyguards and a suitably menacing rocket.

Two Stroke Times is one of the benefits of membership – why not sign up and settle down for a good read?

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“Why are you on my telly?”

Club members watching Flying Across Britain with Arthur Williams on Sunday evening spotted a familiar face being interviewed about Lancaster bomber Just Jane at Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Museum – SALT regular and Berlin-based member Axel Schmelzer.

Axel said: “We saw Arthur when we went in the museum – we saw them filming and Steve Durrant told me that he had made a programm on the Mosquito.

“When the Lancaster finished taxiing a young and attractive woman approached me and asked if I‘m from Berlin – I‘ve worn a Berlin Polizei parka –  and I said yes, we had a bit of small-talk than Steve joined us and she asked if we want to be on TV.”

Find out what Axel thinks of the Lancaster here!

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“It looks like there’s loads missing.”

Our favourite car is the star of the latest epsiode of Cold War Conversations, a podcast run by Ian Sanders and Shane Whaley which aims to cover interesting aspects of the Cold War and speak to people who experienced it first-hand.

The podcast team travelled to Staffordshire to meet club members Alex Goffe and Mark Mullarkey for a chat about Trabants, other Eastern Bloc vehicles, why you should join the Wartburg Trabant IFA Club, and just what it is about Trabants that makes them so much fun.

Alex and Mark take listeners for a tour under the bonnet and a short spin on local roads. The podcast is just under 40 minutes and a great listen. Tune in here!