Fifty-Two Trabants and One Bulgarian

In her song Katie Melua extolled 99 bicycles in Bejing, however China is not the only country to boast with a huge number of vehicles. Ivailo Antonov, a Bulgarian, has collection of 52 Trabants, assembled within a span of 20 years.
In its golden age of communist Europe the Trabant, was both laughed at for its smoke-emitting, rattling two-stroke engine and body made of a cousin of Bakelite, and loved as one of few available vehicles behind the Iron Wall. Prized as they were in the communist era as buyers endured long waits to get one, Trabants greatest production value was in jokes about them.
Antonov admits he's got his love for Trabants from his father and grandfather. His first Tabant is a model 600 from 1963. The next one he bought was meant for parts, but Antonov could not bring himself to take it apart and it was in this way that the collection began to grow. When the number of cars exceeded the space available in his city home garden, he moved them to a large area of his familys rural property.
He admits that rather selling one of his Trabants, he'd give one of his 'gems' away to someone who would keep it and use it properly.