|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:44:43 GMT
|
i just recieved this link for a forum somewhere in Poland from my friend Fleszer, he said its all about projects of the Lada company past and future! Not much information passes out of Russian it seems about these cars. click here
|
|
|
|
Neil
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,485
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:48:58 GMT
|
Nice link! Good to see the Niva's still about, love the 4 door version with the weller style 8 spokes Does anyone know if you can still buy the Riva new?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:50:41 GMT
|
yes you can! easiest is from www.lada.co.uk allan bird will import and sell you one new! I know this week he colects 4 new nivas that have come from a dealer in Latvia! check all 8 pages mate, there is a lot of pics to view!
|
|
|
|
Neil
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,485
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:55:51 GMT
|
Result!! I love a nice Riva me! Any ideas as to why Lada no longer flog their wears in the UK? Do they have any plans for a return?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:57:36 GMT
|
i was looking at the lada website at school the other day, i really fancy one of those new ones - just for the novelty! tom are you looking at this thread?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:58:17 GMT
|
Something to do with safety regulations i believe but don't quote me on that.
|
|
|
|
том
Posted a lot
"If in doubt, flat out!"
Posts: 2,707
|
|
Mar 18, 2006 23:58:27 GMT
|
i want this one... No, this one...
|
|
1988 V8 Rangey Bobtail :: 1968 Volvo Amazon 133 Ratrod :: 1977 Land Rover 88 :: 1985 Opel Monza GSE :: 1983 MKII Fiesta
|
|
|
|
|
no not safety regs, the cars are VERY safe elive it or not! it was because of the emitions, they would have had to put injection on the car, we where only a small market. i was very interested in this
|
|
Last Edit: Mar 19, 2006 0:02:47 GMT by avtovaz
|
|
|
|
|
This is true, the problem is that Lada's engines aren't all that clean by modern standards, and to build them to our regulations, with fuel injection and a catalytic converter good enough would have cost them more than they were likely to recouperate through sales, so they just didn't bother doing it, Lada have never been in the most robust financial shape compared to the average Western car firm. Ladas have never sold as well here as in some markets anyway, I reckon it has something to do with the badge-squeemishness and casual xenophobia that a lot of British buyers, particularly of new cars, have. Whearas in the past phases of anti-Japanese, anti-Italian, and anti-Korean feeling have kept sales of Datsuns, Lancias and Daewoos/Hayundais etc lower than they would be, but in many cases the phases end people get used to the cars (Lancia did have to pull out of the UK market when their reputation was ruined by largely tall tales about the Beta's build quality, which wasn't really any worse than that of the average British Leyland, Vauxhall or Chrysler UK creation, the stories of engines falling out were almost always unsubstantiated.) feeling against Russian cars has always existed in the new car market as far as I can tell. Part of it I reckon has something to do with peoples' cultural, socialised mistrust of the Eastern Bloc left over from the Cold War. Although many working class people who weren't in the position to buy a more expensive car were glad of the cheap asking price and even cheaper spares of the Moskvitch 412, rear engined Skodas and Lada Riva and Niva etc when they were imported here and when sold secondhand, (and in any case anti-Soviet feeling was never so high among the working classes anyway, although it did exist, but when you're working curse word hours for a curse word wage, quite obviously being exploited but seeing no way out of it, there's always going to be some romantisism and allure about a culture and ideaology that has, ostensibly at least, cast off the shackles of class inequality and privelage), those who could afford to spend a little more on a Western or Japanese car, which has more badge-prestige and posing power, allowing you to keep up with the Joneses, and also has more options and added extras to chose from, with the added benefit that it wasn't created by a group of countries who you're supposed to fear and sneer at as barbaric reds who're aiming nukes at you whilst they plan world domination. Even after the end of the Cold War, anti-Soviet feeling remained, and does to this day. Try it for yourself, next time you're down the pub, or in uni, or wherever, try to bring up a conversation showing socialism, or communism in a vaguely positive light, you can almost guarantee that someone will mockingly call you comrade in a bad Russian accent, and I've found that many people will do the same if Ladas or old Skodas are mentioned (Skoda less so, because in recent years the Skoda brand has become a slightly prestigious and well marketed brand of the VAG group) Obviously I'm not saying that all middle class British people hated Ladas and Skodas, but the culture in a country can have a great effect on the car industry. Take a look at nowadays, when the home-mechanic with his Haynes manual, his bag of spanners and his mug of tea, fixing his motor on the driveway is an endangered species, killed off partly by the complexity of modern cars but largely by 'YES Car Credit' culture, wherein if you don't take out a loan and buy the latest model every three years then you're looked down on as a social leper, the assumption being that unless you 'own' a new Focus or Vectra or whatever, you must be an uncultured, antisocial slob who is somehow inferior to the neighbours who'll be paying through the nose for all eternity for a new car they didn't need to buy, just because you own an old car. It's not that you choose to drive an old car because it interests you. Oh no, you really want to drive a 54 plate diesel Mondeo and owe everything you have to YES Car Credit, it's just that you're too poor and unsophisticated, that's why you're driving a modified classic you knuckle-dragging failure! In a similar fashion, the affordable Eastern car of the 80s and 90s was killed by social pressure to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. 'Mr and Mrs Smith next door have a Rover Montego estate, how can you show your face on the cul-de-sac with a Lada Riva, they'll think you're either a closet communist, or worse still, working class!' 'Mrs Thomspon accross the way drops her children off to cello lessons in a Volkswagen Golf, you can't take the kids to band practice in a Skoda, they'll never forgive you!!' Then there were the reliability stories that are always important in making or breaking a car's reputation, the Hillman Imp being a British example, not actually any worse built than a Mini or a Triumph Herald etc, and the handling wasn't any more dangerous than the competition, in fact in many cases it was much better, but the average pub bore or tabloid newspaper would have you believe the Imp was an explosion-prone, tail happy deathtrap while the Mini was god's gift to the motor industry. To me popular opinion done a similar thing to Soviet cars. 'You're not going to buy a Lada Riva are you!? It'll rot away in the first six months, and you'll be fixing it every week! You'll be much better off with a Vauxhall!' or 'Those Skoda Estelles are deathtraps you know! My brother-in-law's mate's auntie's chiropodist knew a guy who had one of those, couldn't handle it in the wet, ended up in a ditch, those rear engines ought to be banned you know!' Once that sort of thing becomes widespread a car's reputation never totally recovers, and its market share suffers accordingly. Again, the Hillman Imp shows a similar scenario, the Linwood factory had the potential to build 150 000 cars a year, but once people caught wind of percieved build quality problems (not actually as bad as some would have you believe, and pretty much solved by the mkII model, but the rumours persisted) and apparent reliability issues (largely caused by the revolutionary pneumatic throttle, autochoke and lubrication-free teflon-coating of many chassis components, which were found to be unsuccsessful and dropped in favour of less adventurous parts for the mkII model), the factory couldn't generate enough orders to ever work at full capacity, and in 13 years only made 450 000 Imps. The same story applies to Soviet cars in the UK. Once a public already suspicious of products sold by 'The Evil Empire' accross the Iron Curtain caught wind of Ladas rusting while in the care of their first owner (because British Leylands and Talbot-Chryslers never had that problem! ) and wayward-handling Skodas (not at all like the Renault 19 and mkII Astra, the pinnacles of high speed performance!), the damage was done and nobody would touch them, not helped by the fact that they were dreadfully unfashionable compared with some of the more established Western competition, even if they were a great deal better value.
|
|
"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
|
|
Davenger
Club Retro Rides Member
It's only metal
Posts: 7,272
Club RR Member Number: 140
|
Lada cars!Davenger
@dminifreak
Club Retro Rides Member 140
|
|
I want this
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That was one of the most impressive [and longest! ;D] posts I've seen on any forum. It sums up a lot of how I feel, but I'm just not as good at wording it as you are! Part of what I love here is the non snobby atititude, everyone on RR is equal whatever the car they drive. I am so impressed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes I did get carried away slightly, glad you liked it though, thanks! ;D
|
|
"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 10:10:32 GMT
|
You might see a bit more of Lada soon as their entering the World Touring Car Championship this year ;D
|
|
|
|
Nick
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,483
|
Lada cars!Nick
@rearwheelnick
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:09:05 GMT
|
that wtcc car looks badass,
|
|
idea stolen from rattely eddie.
this weeks car count "5"
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:23:48 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:30:34 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:31:28 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:33:31 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 13:48:14 GMT
|
Some monumentally tasteless bodykits there, each to their own and all that but most of the Zhigulis Rmad posted there seem to have been modded with little or no sympathy to the original clean design of them, particularly those massive spoilers! Trabants seem to suffer the same problem, what with silly headlamp 'eyelids', 'bad boy' bonnets and huge spoilers and airdams being quite common, which is a shame because the Trabant is an attractive little car without any uncessesary adornments, particulalry with the early small bumpers. I think it has something to do with the fact that whearas here the average Fast and Furious type can afford a modern hatch to bodykit up, in many former Soviet countries they don't have a hope of getting a Corsa or Saxo to mess about with, but Trabants and Ladas are going for cheap, so they focus their attention on those, which is unfortunate because in my opinion a Fast and Furious style retro car is infinately worse than a modern car done in the same way, at least a modern car in a bodykit has similar curvy plastic shapes on it to the bodykit, a boxy Lada or Trabant just doesn't suit a bodykit with loads of vents, particularly because if there's anything a Trabant doesn't need it's more ventilation for that little two stroke! ;D:o Having said that the red Zhiguli there would be bloody lovely on a set of more retro wheels! Just wants a hot Mazda rotary engine in there now!
|
|
"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
|
|
GJM
Posted a lot
Alloy engines; like communism- great in theory.
Posts: 1,393
|
|
Mar 19, 2006 14:01:00 GMT
|
|
|
|
|