Car Fact #148 — November 10, 2026

The 1950s Trabant used a two-stroke engine with such poor combustion efficiency that the factory explicitly recommended mixing the fuel with cheap mineral oil that would only partially burn, deliberately fouling the spark plugs as an intentional wear-reduction strategy—meaning owners were instructed to mechanically cripple their own engines with incompletely combusted oil to keep the tiny powerplant from self-destructing.