The relationship between the United States and Russia over the past hundred years or so would put any soap-opera romance to shame. Russia was the enemy in the 1930s, then it was an ally, then it was the enemy. When I was a kid in the ’70s, the Soviet Union was absolutely the enemy and we all expected that someday there would be war between the countries. Despite a concerned media effort to paint McCarthy, Nixon, et al as panicked morons swinging at shadows, most of us figured the Soviet Union did, in fact, regularly attempt to interfere in American affairs. (Turns out McCarthy was as right as he was wrong, maybe more so.) Sure, you had the committed leftists who were willing to take a “honeymoon” there, but they were few and far between.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia-US relations enjoyed a thaw. It didn’t last. Now the same political left that excused Stalin’s purges is clutching its pearls over Crimea, while the right-wingers who used to seriously discuss a nuclear-equipped preemptive strike against Moscow see Mr. Putin as a sort of fun-loving, horse-riding fellow who has the guts to drive an F1 car in wet conditions.
This is the sort of stark dichotomy that tends to cause trouble if left untended. Luckily, there’s something that can be done about it.
Russia’s auto industry, both “captive” and native, is in trouble. But they have a product that could prove quite popular in the United States: the so-old-it’s-now-retro Lada Niva 4×4. By my rough and largely ignorant calculations, it could be profitably sold for about $12,000 here. There are plenty of outdoorsy types who would cheerfully spend that kind of money on something that could get them up a trail.
The globalist crowd regularly tells us that strong trade is all that prevents global conflict, and that is why we have to accept an endless flood of untaxed Chinese junk through our ports. To me, that sounds disturbingly close to just giving a bully your lunch money. But let’s say they’re right. Why don’t we trade with Russia for once? Let’s heal this breach before it’s too late. Bring on the Ladas. The more the merrier. The only question is: would you have any room for something like this in your life?
Looks ready to go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Niva
Emissions and other regulations etc. might be a problem.
There’s no “might” to it.
https://youtu.be/tYmTnxC0E1s?t=1m07s
Honestly as far as Russian and soviet-legacy vehicles go, that crash test looked pretty good. That says something…
Defund the EPA and NHTSA and bring that bitch over here!
During my first two years living and working in Moscow my daily driver was a Lada Zhiguli 06 four-door sedan (basically a 20 year old Fiat). It combined the best of Italian engineering with the best of Russian quality control. My daily driver for my last two years was a Niva 4X4. No one knows how to build crap cars like the Soviets did.
20 year old Fiat? It was actually a fifty year old FIAT, being based on the FIAT 124 that won the 1967 Car of the Year.
Unlike the author and some of the commentariat here, I have absolutely no problem buying foreign goods and have a completely clean conscious about doing so. So I would have no problem buying a Russian car so long as it meets my requirements* and is of reasonable quality.
*Prime Requirements:
– Manual transmission
– 2 door
– at least 2+2 seating
– EPA rated at least 20mpg city.
So given my requirements, the Lada Niva is out, but hypothetically if a Russian car were sold in America I would have no qualms about considering it. Or a Chinese car. Or Peruvian. Or even if it was made my Oompa Loompas.
Niva fits all your requirements. It has manual, 2 doors, 2+3 seating and mpg. And people run them for 30-40 years. It lasts.
Ha! I guess it does technically. Still not quite what I would want though.
By ‘Prime Requirements’ I meant that those are the very broad things that I look for. I prefer 2+2 coupes. Think Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Genesis Coupe, GT86/BRZ, 90’s Thunderbird, Eclipse, 240SX, and any number of coupes made through the 90’s. Not a 4×4 hatchback.
In the context of Russian cars, I don’t think they do coupes all that often, but I think Moskvich made one for awhile that looked pretty cool.
But in a dystopian future when there are almost no more manual transmission cars, if my choice is between a 4×4 Niva 5 speed or anything else with an automatic, I would pick the Niva.
Niva’s 1.7L 80hp fuel injected 4cyl and sub-3000lb curb weight would make 20mpg city a possibility I think. My heavier 2.3L 4cyl ranger can do about 23 in a city-biased routine (but without the drag of fulltime AWD). My rental full-time 4wd Terios in Costa Rica got damn close to 30mpg bouncing up and down steep jungle trails and local 30-45mph roads.
…and speaking of Costa Rica, when we were there in 2012 I did not see one car, pickup, or small bus (Toyota HiAce) that had an automatic transmission. Our country may be facing “a dystopian future when there are almost no more manual transmission cars” but that doesn’t mean the world is.
Still occasionally see one around here. Believe a ‘Cossack’ edition. But then about 1/2 mile away is an office tower (6 or 8 stories) that still has the Lada name and Logo, over 1 storey high mounted on the top floors. The former Lada Head Office.
A robust and easy to work on vehicle with exemplary off road capabilities. However would it meet current pedestrian and safety and emissions requirements? And if not, then how much would it cost to upgrade?
Here is a link to the non-Chev branded model, which allegedly was sold in the UK as late as 2010. And available with everything that ‘DevilsRotary’ requires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADA_4x4
@Arthur Dailey – you probably recall back in the 80’s there was a push in Canada to market Lada’s. I took a look at them but my dad pointed out that unless they develop an established network and show staying power, don’t touch ’em. I’m happy that I listened since the effort imploded.
You don’t need trade to improve relations with Russia. All you need is a president who worships autocrats, and wants to be one.
@fishiftstick – That works until you fire missiles at one of their friends ;)
There’s no end to the automotive junk some Canadian consumers will buy: compared to the Hyundai Pony, the Lada was the pinnacle of durability.
Lou: Around the same time both Skodas and Dacias were briefly imported into and sold in Canada. We did not however get the Yugo.
A friend of mine purchased a Lada 4 door sedan and really quite enjoyed it. He is a mechanic and his father was a large engine/diesel mechanic and they found it one of the easiest vehicles he has ever experienced to work on. Treated it like you would a British roadster/sports car, and did some work on it most weekends. Perhaps because of his skill it was also reliable.
But then his father had a diesel Oldsmobile and they kept it running with little to no issues. And his girlfriend had a TR7 that they kept running. Of the 3 the Triumph was probably the most demanding.
We enjoyed trying out the crank start that came standard on the Lada. The interior cloth upholstery looked like something from a Soviet armed forces great coat and wore very well. Tolerances on Soviet built vehicles were much like those on Soviet firearms. Meaning they may not look ‘finished’ but with minimal care they will work under extreme conditions.
I have another friend/co-worker (yes more than one !) who was an engineering executive with VAZ and he has regaled us many times with Western misconceptions of Soviet manufacturing techniques.
You get a Lada car for your money.
Maybe a Lada 128, which was based on the Fiat design, with many of the same quirks and anomalies as its Italian cousin.
But they were popular in Western Europe. I knew a few GIs who bought them used and learned to tinker on them.
Real easy to work on. A shade-tree fixit man could keep it running. (Merle Haggard)
@readallover – LOL
“Maybe a Lada 128, which was based on the Fiat design”
HDC methinks you’re confused, but the gist is correct. The Lada was called 2101, and it was basically a copy of the Fiat 124. That Fiat was largely considered to be one of the most advanced and all around best mainstream European cars at the time, the Lada was more advanced still with a standard overhead cam engine, heady stuff in 1970. BUT, the Lada had to be thoroughly reengineered for the reality of Soviet/Russian infrastructure at the time. Much longer travel suspension, reinforced suspension arms, loss of rear disk brakes. The most glaring deficiency of early Fiat test mules was strength of the unibody itself. Cars were literally being torn apart on the test track. So that Lada’s sheetmetal is thicker and sturdier. The resulting car was more durable and more comfortable over bad roads, but lost some of that Italian sportiness. Still, compared to dowdy looking Moskvitches with their rear leaf spring suspensions (to their credit they gained a zippy BMW 1500-clone OHC engine), the Lada was a revelation and quickly became the object of lust by all budding car enthusiasts.
the spam filter got me
Most of the Ladas sold in Canada were shipped to Siberia, as they were subject to waiting lists there.
Guitar man, you bring up an interesting phenomenon. Post Soviet collapse, there was in fact a huge ‘repatriation’ of export-model Lada products in the early-mid 90s. They were seen as more or less worthless in places like the UK and the rest of Europe, but the home demand was very strong. There was a commonly held opinion in Russia that the export Ladas were better put-together than the home-market cars, further increasing demand.
Wasn’t there a plan in the late 1990s to bring some Russian military type 4×4 over here given the fall of the Iron Curtain, the collapse of Communism, and the desire for cold hard cash?
I swear I picked up a brochure in Cobo Hall in… 1998?
The vehicle kinda looked like the illegitimate child of a first gen Trooper.
Yes, and motorweek did a review in ’94. The plan was to install Our Lord as the powerplant to replace the wheezy carb’d Volga 2.45L 4cyl!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFJ-3evD2XM
An UAZ 469 in its element in Altai (near Mongolian border):
youtu.be/bEjjLJcD96I
youtu.be/wwZJv-msOrM
That UAZ would have been unstoppable.
Say what you might about the crudeness and all around crappy nature of Soviet/Russian hardware, they make some seriously capable and sturdy offroad rigs:
youtu.be/_MKtTeuiaO0
youtu.be/TjL9lOIrUk4
Maybe the Romanian ARO
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-aro-244-aromanian-4×4/
@mopar4wd, YUP – that’s it!
Trooper meets original Land Rover meets S10 Blazer.
Damn it I wanted one.
Only if it looks like this.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/2013_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade_%2807%29.jpg/640px-2013_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade_%2807%29.jpg
Sure- why not.
Belarus Tractors = Strong like bull.
A fun thing to think about if we threw out a bunch of safety regulations, hell I’d love to have one, but the bigger issue may very well be accepted norms for build quality and reliability.
There is this concept of a new car “ripening” in the new owner’s hands in Russia. That is, your new Lada/Moskvitch/Volga/UAZ/zaporozhets will come to your from the factory as more or less an assembled collection of parts. But some parts will be faulty, some assembly will be incredibly slip-shod. The owner then with their own hands brings things up to snuff in the communal garage perhaps with the help of a few local shade tree experts. And after that is settled, the car will still need very regular attention even at low mileage. It used to be very much a cultural experience/tradition for the men to leave their commie block apartments on the weekends to go wrench on their cars in the commie-block garage complexes. In addition to the wrenching, it became an obvious social venue with post-wrenching drinking, hanging out, etc. As more and more people buy imports the culture of communal garage comraderie is dying out. This points to technical progress, but it’s sad to lose such an institution.
For those curious to get a glance of one of these garages, my brother spent some time reanimating the old family ZAZ 966 last summer in Novosibirsk:
youtu.be/tA6VNTrEHOc?t=993
“Post wrenching drinking”
Yeah right, in my experience the drinking was anything but post
Haha I guess it’d all depend on the person. My dad spent a year when he was 17 in a trade school working on commercial trucks, spending days in a servicing pit working on 2 and 4 ton GAZ and ZiLs mostly. The things he remembers most vividly is 1) washing caked grease out of his hair, 2) the worst trucks to work on weren’t the poop-pumper sanitation trucks but the milk trucks with spoiled milk sprayed all over the underside in the summer, and 3) his grown coworkers keeping a bottle of vodka in someone’s boot for the end of the shift every day.
People working on their own vehicles tended to take themselves quite seriously I think, cars were a luxury and parts a huge deficit. But working as a mechanic in a state or kolkhoz garage, absolutely.
You talking about wenching or wrenching?
Well my grandfather did have a sign in his shop that said: “Loose Women Tightened Here”
I’ll admit to some post-drinking wenching in my younger days.
I did not drink but spending quality time in garage complex with my Lada Sputnik was something to admire. I disassembled and assembled the whole car fighting with rusting, timing belt rupture and other frequent ills. I bought it used and it was my first car. After two years of learning I felt confident enough to sell it and buy a real car (Toyota Carina II from Germany), I did couple of repairs on Toyota but it was nothing compared to Lada, and no intimacy. Lada though was more fun car to drive, much more, Toyota was boring, boring, boring. Did I mention that Toyota was boring?
I was surprised why Americans buy Toyotas when there are so many much more exciting cars available.
By the time you got done getting it emission and safety legal, you would have the Yugo II.
Will it make me more popular with the Russian ladies?
I think that depends. Are these the sorts of ladies who prefer cash?
yes…
“Our prostitutes are the best in the world, but I doubt that Trump took the bait.”
No. Russian ladies know difference between Lada and BMW
“Russia was the enemy in the 1930s…”
It started way earlier. We always remember Guatemala, Grenada, Cuba, Vietnam ….
What about Russia? Shouldn’t mess with a bear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
“Shouldn’t mess with a bear”
Unless you’re Russian I guess
youtu.be/Ni0rqdUwqGs
lol
I didn’t know a GoPro could survive a journey through the digestive system of a bear.
GoPro, A tell tail sign that a bear has been eating more than berries.
A tip – leave the area as quickly as possible if the bear poo smells like pepper and has bells in it.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj8n-yYnevTAhVT0GMKHTFyDkAQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.papercards.com%2Fsearch-details.asp%3FbcID%3D1%26cgID%3D101%26itemnum%3DCD3892&psig=AFQjCNEjRmJhrSVeUpdd79Hyape9TBUYIA&ust=1494708490913138
In fact Imperial Russia was considered far more of a threat in the 18th and 19th centuries.
<>
They weren’t at all. I was there.
I’d like an old ZIL truck for towing and hauling junk. One of those UAZ “Breadvans” would be a nice compliment to the Niva as well. Just repower them with the junkyard staple Ecotec motor.
A Canadian Niva showed up at Barber Motorsports with the LeMons Rally – it was a rough little beast, but made a 5000 mile trip from Calgary to Alabama and back with minimal issues.
I’ve actually given it some thought, since they started re-selling them again down here. And they actually fitted them with an electrical (or mechanical) winch, to classify it as farm equipment and avoid VAT. Price is something around what Jack estimates, so $11-12.000, depending on exchange rates. Only in refrigerator white.
BTW, the car that Putin drives seems to be (according to my untrained eye) an F2 or F3, since the car itself and the tires are narrower, more upright. Still, leaving aside what I might think about his politics, pretty ballsy!
How do you get that price up to 12k $? I’d like to see Jack’s calculations, too.
Also, the article about the imploding Russian car market is two years old. Things are bad still, but improving.
I live in Chile. The local price is about that, at current exchange rates, in Chilean Pesos. Unlike the US, prices here are what’s published, give or take 5% or so in discounts for registration and such. Not much room to haggle, no dealer prige gouging either.
What’s new in Chile?
Falcons?
I’m sure Torchinsky would buy all of them up.
Cheap-ass 4×4 I don’t need to worry about sounds good.
If your tastes run to 3 wheels, you can buy Russian right now
https://www.imz-ural.com/
And for $12K, I’d be interested in a Niva.
I looked at these before the sanctions.
“But let’s say they’re right. Why don’t we trade with Russia for once?”
Is this some sort of request to lift sanctions on Russia?
Free Trade neoliberalism goes way back. Every US president from Ronald Reagan onward has embraced open and unfettered markets.
The WhiteHouse is seeing its own internal war between the neoliberal nepotistic side and the Bannon Populist side.
Which hand will get to control the sockpuppet?
My money is on Kushner.
We are already seeing H. R. McMaster is winning against the Bannon side.
I hate to say it, but “H. R. McMaster” sounds like it could be one of Kramer’s alter egos.
Agreed.
I see your point.
I hear he is going to put Art Vandalay on the NSC
NSC? No, Secretary of Architecture.
Is proper 4×4 of defeat Russia mud. Is good.
There is certainly a lucrative market here for a true utilitarian like this. If it were allowed, we wouldn’t have to fantasize. The world is full of (to me) desirable cars that don’t meet US standards. I miss my TrooperII, but since no equivalent exists and the old ones are beat, I just drive a Tahoe and treat it like one.
Here’s a link to a test drive of a 2003 Lada Niva. It appears to be a nice little vehicle but it probably be a lot heavier and more expensive if it had to comply with US safety and emission standards.
http://hooniverse.com/2011/11/08/used-car-review-2003-lada-niva-4×4/
Finally, something the subaru brat fans can say we can import and be happy with.
I’d rather have the semi-auto Arsenal AK74’s that got blocked by the last administration come back in. Even if I can buy 3 of them for the price of 1 Lada.
I thought it was the surplus ammo which was banned? Arsenal manufactures the SLR in Las Vegas if I am not mistaken.
I don’t shed a tear for the ammo, most of it was steel-cased and steel-jacketed sh!t that no indoor range allows anyway.
So it’s worse than the cheap ass “Tulammo” sh*t Wal-Mart sells?
NoGoYo tulammo is all the same steel core stuff, coming from the same factories that made the milsurp stuff. I shoot outdoors so I could care less, my AK platform eats it all up. Bonus: brown bear ak rounds are made in Barnaul, my neck of the woods in Siberia.
“we have to accept an endless flood of untaxed Chinese junk through our ports. To me, that sounds disturbingly close to just giving a bully your lunch money.”
Don’t give in – BE THE BULLY.
With government mandates and conscripted task forces if necessary, flood Russia’s ports with cheap 4x4s. Under a national security mandate command America’s factories to work extra shifts and overflow Russia’s ports with Wranglers, Tahoes, Escalades and Navigators all priced LESS than any Lada on the market!
Don’t stop until every peasant in Siberia has given up trying to keep his Lada running because super-cheap Navigator leases make him surrender to the inevitable.
Now, some egghead professor at the University of Irkutsk might say all this is to the benefit of Russians rather than punishment, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Perhaps you’ve forgotten Nixon’s plan to flood China with American products. The question of “Where are the Chinese going to get the money?” turned out different than Dick thought.
Nivas are flimsy, rust quickly, and something always breaks. Differentials and transmissions wear out quickly. It’s really rare to see one reach even 150000 km.
Sure, you can keep one running for decades if you’re ready to change pretty much every part, and have time to weld new sheet metal everywhere.
If they offer a pickup truck here in the US of the size I’m looking for, hell yes I would consider it!
They do! Its called the 1992 Ford Ranger XL.
No, John, they don’t. A 1992 is not a 2017 and I already have a 1997 Ranger. I want brand new and NO larger than my ’97, though I want an extended cab and am willing to sacrifice 15″-20″ of bed length to get it. Since that is not available in the US or Canada (though is in Mexico as the Ram 700) I continue to wait.
If only I’d taken notes back in the late ’80s, when I drove a 4×4 Niva for six months, I could have written a full reader review for TTAC today. Going by time-fuzzied impressions, it was an odd cross between bulletproof and a POS. Those six months were in rural, mostly unpaved parts of Kenya, and the Niva never got stuck. It also never broke all the way down, though several times it needed triaging to get where it needed to go. (A bush mechanic once patched a leaking fuel line on it by winding a spool of thread around it and infusing that thread with soap– which allowed it to make a 20 mile trip to a town with a real repair shop). Appropriately, too, when you stepped on the brakes with any force, the thing dove left.
I drove one and the problem I had was the pedals are super close together. I had to take my shoes off to drive it, so I didn’t stab the brake when I went to shift.
I remember going to Thunder Bay, ON in the late 90’s and seeing a Lada dealership. They looked like great off-road vehicles and were certainly affordable, but they were rusting horribly. Brand new vehicles with rust all over… not sure how many winters they would last on salted winter roads.
The Lada dealer chain back then cooperated with Rust Check to provide a rust through warranty. Rust Check is (was?) a popular third-party chain of franchises that would oil spray your car for a nominal fee. The product actually worked pretty well; part of their application program involved pulling a lot of the little rubber body plugs and grommets and shooting this proprietary light oil with a pressure washer in there. You could also buy that oil in a retail aerosol can. It worked great for freeing stuck, rusty bolts! (Far, far better than WD-40 or 3-in-1, for example.)
Anyway, that rust warranty partnership wasn’t enough to carry the “new” Lada brand and they died out after only a few years.
Nope, wouldn’t even consider it. Even if they weren’t the enemy, why would I want a Russian POS when there are far better options available?
Can we at least recognize that when Russia dropped Communism, things changed?
Or should we still pretend there’s an East and West Germany and have tanks at Checkpoint Charlie where the Berlin Wall was?
@whitworth – iron fisted totalitarian rule hasn’t changed.
Lou your perspective sounds like is based exclusively on what you may read on CNN or the like. The amount of personal liberty a person had then versus now isn’t even close. Certainly it isn’t at the level of a Western democracy, but these things aren’t an either/or type of affair. The current state of things as unbelievable as it may sound to you are closer to a Western democracy than the previous communist system.
gtemnykh – yes, that is true. I was referring more to media or political dissent.
Like ABC, CNN or Berkeley?
Don’t forget that many far leftists in the west actually LIKED the Soviet times. They hate modern Russia in similar ways to how they hated Pinochet in Chile.
…guys like Bernie Sanders who honeymooned in Russia?
Kevin Jaeger – far left yes.
“Pinochet in Chile” – anyone with a semblance of empathy for their fellow man would hate a regime that used torture and murder to keep the populace in line.
District of Criminals likes to bomb countries which are no threat to it. Pinochet was no threat to his neighbors.
Pinochet > DC?
@28-Cars-Later – Those who bomb countries that are no threat to them reside in the same halls as those who put Pinochet in power.
I own three Russian Ural Motocycles, they’re cobby but very reliable, never had the cylinder heads off my 1994 Tourist 650 yet…..
.
Cheap and robust, I’d give a Niva a go if I could sneak one into California and get plates for it .
.
I have _zero_ need for any 4X4 but the whole idea looks good to me .
.
-Nate
I’ve been thinking of importing 25 year old Niva, or UAZ for awhile. They can be bought pretty cheap on the used Market in various conditions. I’d fix all the issues before shipping, and then proceed to drive it to port.
Niva is a cult car, but I’m afraid the quality is just not there for the car to be a success, even at $12k. I’d take a good look at Toyota/Daihatsu Rush though. Heck, I lament the passing for Suzuki Grand Vitara, which, frankly, was a better car than Niva.
UAZ Hunter might be something to take a look at, but then again – same problems. When radiators fall off supports because the mounts are not welded on well, you know that inevitable recalls are going to cut into profits badly.
And then there’s the cost of federalization. I don’t think it’s impossible technically. After all, Mitsubishi managed to sell a kei car in America just recently – in 2010s. But the cost needs to be passed on to consumers and that will push the price up. The history is littered with projects of this nature, from Tata Nano to Mahindra truck.
My brother has an ’02 XL7, part of the last generation that still had BOF+solid rear axle. It’s a surprisingly capable truck even at stock ride height and with the long wheelbase. The regular 4 doors are better geometrically, and of course the 2 door ‘shorties’ are better yet. Definitely a Niva-like trucklet with much better quality.
We had some family friends in Novosibirsk with a long wheelbase 4 door Niva (Lada 2131), it made short work of the washed out dirt roads out to their dacha. They also own a ’98 ML320 and in the winter that same road out to the dacha can only be traversed by the Niva. It’s actually the only Niva I’ve ridden in. A very “agricultural” experience with a ton of gear whine from the diffs and transfer case, and not two but three levers sticking out of the tunnel (transmission, high-low range shifter, center diff lock shifter).
A neat 2-Niva expedition to Dyatlov Pass in the Northern Urals (with subtitles):
youtu.be/fZoqGdXlTr8
“… the same political left” must have discovered the fountain of youth if they were defending Stalin’s purges in the late 1930’s and are still around to clutch at pearls today.
cpthaddock – Viagra is amazing
Viagra is a waste of time and money.
“Viagra is a waste of time and money.”
It helps with blood flow, the rest is er um *up* to you.
As I said, it’s a waste of time. All it takes is the right kind of stimulation and Viagra has NO effect on that. I’m an ‘old man’ who can still get it up for his wife.
I don’t think we should trade with those monsters. I never thought I’d see the day where the right wing nazis would call Russia their friend and the GOP would roll over for Russia.
Hell truly has frozen over. Russia has always been the enemy and I say this as a liberal with no love for Putin whatsoever.
I’m finding this current hysterical liberal strain of McCarthyism particularly fascinating.