Is his father dying that night - or was he exposed as a former East German spy? Did his parents commit suicide together - or are they lying on the beach in Madeira? Or did he just make it all up? On this late summer night, anything seems possible for Georg Himmel. When the young man receives a text message at his best friend's wedding in an Istrian grand hotel, which his father probably intended to send to an affair, a long journey begins for him. Georg gets into the old Corsa and drives off to intercept his father at Munich airport in the early hours of the morning to prevent the family from falling apart. But is there anything left to save? Are the parents who he always thought they were? Or is that what he wanted them to be? Georg traces memories, tries to find clues to cracks in his parents' marriage that he has overlooked. He confronts his fears and fantasies, his loneliness, his disappointments. Between motorway service stations and detours, "Trabant" tells of hope, hesitation, rage and fear, of gliding silently through the black night, of arriving and of a big surprise.