Quality Control, the old fashioned way

As a contrast to the video footage of sophisticated manufacturing and quality control of the Qashqai at Nissan’s Sunderland plant which Lord Sutch posted to the blog a few weeks ago, I have found this ancient video from the Trabant car plant in Zwickau, in the old communist East Germany….

As the introduction to the video says:

“Vintage footage of the production of the Trabant at VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau, showing end of line adjustment and testing procedures. The Trabant was an intentionally labour intensive car, with a total production run of little over three million units in 34 years and for the customer, an average waiting time of 15 years.” The film shows how effective the application of a well-aimed kick could be, possibly showing how well trained the workers were, but probably not.