The International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, D.C., exists to tell the history of espionage and national security by connecting the realities of intelligence gathering to ideas and events in popular culture. Toward that end, it currently has an exhibit about James Bond, demonstrating how 007?s nemeses were inspired by real-life threats. Fortunately for us, this includes a couple of cars: a tricked-out Aston Martin DB5 used in promoting Goldfinger as well as the Jaguar XKR used by the baddie in Die Another Day. But the museum is more famous, automotively speaking, for its annual parade of one of the most unloved vehicles ever to trundle off an assembly line, the car that (barely) put East Germany on wheels: the Trabant.
?When we opened 14 years ago, we had two Trabants on display,? said Amanda Ohlke, adult-education director in the museum?s exhibitions and programs department. ?They were props in our re-creation of East Berlin as a city of spies. And then 10 years ago, on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we decided to do something fun to celebrate, and so we had a parade of Trabants.? Since then, the event has become an annual occasion, and it has grown every year. A German band now makes a regular appearance, as does a rolling re-creation of a German border crossing, with museum employees dressed in East German State Security, or Stasi, uniforms. (The German Embassy helps sponsor the event.) Once word got out to the American Trabant faithful, the num...