Is it really better to be dead than red? Today you can find out as brings an East German escapee Trabant in from the cold, Comrade.

Given that 75% of you took a long, hearty drag from the Crack Pipe yesterday over the decadence of the , NPOCP thought it best to temper your populist ire with something the proletariat would appreciate.

Award season is rapidly approaching, and Nice Price or Crack Pipe wants you to arrive at the red…

Nineteen fifty seven saw the launch of - the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. This feat was met by terror from an American populace, fearful of spaceborne Russian hydrogen bombs, and the ensuing post-apocalyptic mutant hordes that Hollywood said were inevitable. It was met with pride and a wave of boastful propaganda from behind the Iron Curtain, where they gloated over getting the better nazi scientists. Generating less pride, but proving more enduring than the silver ball thrust into space by the communists, was the East German-built Trabant, announced that same year.

VEB Sachsenring introduced the Trabbi to the working class as demonstration that the socialists could enjoy all the trappings of a capitalist society- like smog, long gas lines and traffic jams! An added benefit to an oppressed and walled-in populous was that the little two-door made for a roomy and sturdy getaway car, effective in the running of Checkpoint Charlie as demonstrated in this TV ad, played during episodes of Stasi and the Professor.

Trabbis were little known in the U.S. until 1989 when Ronald Reagan personally knocked down the Berlin Wall with a single, mighty fart of capitalism, and even today there exist very few in the country. This , with its 600cc 23bhp 2-stroke (because 4 is so bourgeois) would make an interesting round-town car, given that your town doesn't mind the copious amounts of acrid and carcinogenic exhaust the little twin spews out. The Duroplast body, made from a combination of banned western books and the sticky tears of dissidents, provides a lifetime of rust-free enjoyment. Not only that, but it's a Universal which is the rarer bodystyle, and makes the car look less like something from which a multitude of clowns might emerge. A number of key add-ons are noted in the ad- such as an auxiliary heater, lights, and a new 6-volt battery (as 12 is so bourgeois.) With all that, the $4,250 asking price doesn't seem intended to raise the hackles of your typical capitalist swine.

So, is $4,250 a fair price for this commie kombi? Or does that price make you put an eastern block on your checking account?

You decide!

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, or go if the ad disappears. Hat tip to Bzr!

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