Berlin , Germany ( CNN ) -- There are few cars in the world where the difference between driving them and watching them being driven is greater than with the Trabant . It 's a cute little car . Its two big , round headlights look almost like innocent eyes staring back at the beholder . And its tiny frame seems so fragile that all other drivers give you the right of way when you 're taking a spin around town . But driving a Trabant is an adventure , to say the least . As pedestrians smile and take selfies in front of the car , you will be locked in a constant battle just to keep the vehicle on the road . Slipping behind the wheel of a Trabant is sort of like squeezing into a sleeping bag -- especially when you 're 6 feet 5 inches tall , like me . Getting the engine started is half the battle -- the car immediately stalls if you take your foot off the gas -- and the brakes pretty much do n't work at all . Take all these factors together and a trip in stop-and-go traffic quickly becomes nerve-wracking torture . You 're thrilled when you 've finally reached your destination , and the car can once again become the eye-catching backdrop of a myriad of photos snapped by gawking tourists . Nevertheless , the Trabant has been an icon to Germans ever since the tiny Communist-built cars started rolling across the border between what was then East and West Germany in 1989 . There have been movies about the car , where it is depicted as an underdog in races -- almost like the American films about `` Herbie '' the Volkswagen Beetle . The Trabant is so significant that CNN Berlin just had to get one for our coverage of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall , and it quickly became one of the centerpieces of our coverage . We looked on the internet and found that there are few `` Trabis '' left . The ones for sale were being offered up not for driving , but for spare parts . When we finally found one that had somehow managed to pass its latest driving inspection , we snapped it up immediately . The Trabant , produced in Communist East Germany by the government-run conglomerate VEB Sachsenring from 1957 till 1990 , was flawed from inception . A few tweaks were made to the design in 1962 , but fundamentally the car never really changed . The Trabi 's frame is made of cheap PVC plastic -- a material the Germans nicknamed `` racing cardboard '' -- and its tiny frame houses a 26 horsepower , two-stroke engine that runs on a mixture of oil and gasoline . We needed a good concept to make our Trabi -- a 601 S station wagon -- the corner stone of our `` Fall of the Wall '' coverage , so we hired the artist Martin Raumberger to give the car a makeover . He focused on three themes : Berlin , CNN , and the fall of the Berlin Wall . Martin did an amazing job . He sketched several of Berlin 's most famous symbols on our Trabi , including the broadcast tower and the Brandenburg Gate . He also drew a tree of people breaching the Berlin Wall , a symbol of human life penetrating and destroying the anti-human barrier that separated East and West Germany . The longest part of the Wall still standing today ( the East Side Gallery , for instance ) is an open air museum , a living piece of art covered in graffiti . Thousands of people have scrawled their names on the Wall with permanent marker . We decided our Trabi should be no different . We asked people from all over the world to sign the car with their names and hometown , and the reaction we got was amazing . On November 9 thousands of people crowded around our car to sign it , draw on it , and take their picture with it . At some point the authorities asked us to stop because the crowd grew so large that it was blocking the bike path and the street at the East Side Gallery . Now that the celebrations are over it is time to decide what to do with the CNN Trabant next . It has turned into a real work of art by Martin Raumberger and all those who signed their names on it . I certainly will miss our little Trabant , but I will not miss driving it !
CNN 's Frederik Pleitgen takes the iconic Communist Trabant car for a spin . The cars rolled across the border between what was then East and East Germany in 1989 . PVC hired the artist Frederik Pleitgen to give the car a makeover . 26 of people crowded around the car to sign it , draw on it , and take their picture with it .