In our opinion the need was quite urgent;

we had a newborn child, a boy named Sveinn Sigurdur, still sleeping in a cradle.

    What kind of a car might a poor student allow himself to purchase?

    My counsellers told me to avoid buying a used car, which could break down shortly after it came into my possesion, and neither could I afford expensive repairs in garages nor had I any skill for doing it myself.

    I also dicovered that for a year or two new cars were under guarantee from the agency, if the unlikely happened that a new car broke down.

    After we had looked at all options we agreed on the name of our dreamcar;

the cheapest one on the market, a TRABANT ;

manufactured in the former East-Germany with a plastic-superstructure and the only car that could say its own name trabb,trabb, trabb, just as my dad said when he greeted us on our purchase.

    We were obliged to hand out 80,000 kroners for our first sleigh-machine;

a blue and slender station wagon which transported us between places with our children and luggage for seven years, without troubling us with too much extra expence.

    Because the car had just an imperfect two-stroke engine the life of the sparkplugs was very short; I had to replace them with new ones after only a few weeks life.

    Soon after replacement the plugs were in a bath of oil making them very weak, because each time the TRABANT needed petrol, the right amount of two-stroke oil had to be blended with it;

    Along with other particularities worth mentioning is that it seemed to have its own soul and it was given to teasing.

    For a number of occasions in the first year of our possesion of the TRABANT, it became quite powerless while we were driving, usually in the worst places, e.g. downtown in Reykjavik and the electricity seemed to have vanished in thin air, therefore the engine could not be started again.

    When I'd pushed the car out of the driveway I went to get a repairman from the nearest garage.

    The funny thing about these breakdowns was that
whenever the expert turned the switch in the beginning of his testing the little darling of a car started just as nothing had ever happened.

    The ghost haunted our car for months and no-one of the so-called experts was able to resolute the problem.

    But...in one of our numerous visits to my parents' home in Keflavik...it happened, finally the ghost showed itself!

    
    When we had almost reached our usual parking-spot in front of my parents house the engine "died" and it didn't show any marks of restarting when I turned the key.

    Pleased to be probably at the end of our ordeal I hurried inside to get my dad, who's a real wizard in various fields, and happily one of them being car-repairing.

    In a short while he discovered what caused the devilry and was quick busting it.

    The TRABANT turned out quite well after it had matured from its aberrations of youth and transported us to many places and among them Hornafjordur on the south-east corner of our lovely island;

a few hundred kilometers over rough country, full of people and luggage.