no reason to joke about the Lada. that car probably was at least as technically up to date and more reliable, than what British Leyland/Austin Rover/Rover delivered from the mid 70ies to the late 80ies . Compared to the Morris Marina/Ital that Lada was a sophisticated modern car
The problem is that you imply that because they're as good as a Leyland etc. they're not shit? No, it's just that Leyland and other British cars of the 1970's really were THAT bad.
@@Metal-Possum Exactly. We had 2 LADAs in the family. They were crap. The were not modern at all, especially if you compared it to a FIAT 128 or VW Rabbit/Golf and the quality was horrendous compared to the FIAT 124 on which they were based.
@@Metal-Possum To be fair it was mostly BL cars that were bad. Ford UK and independents were making cars that were fine, especially Ford when it came to mass-produced cars.
@@mrsnoop1820 people did not need an own car. it was luxury. because 90% of people lived in big cities with transportation systems that the US could not dream of. car in ussr = recreation purpose only
Oh no, the aluminium brakes myth again. The rear drum is made from aluminium, BUT with a steel inner friction ring. So no, the brakes are NOT made from aluminium.
you probably dont give a shit but if you are bored like me during the covid times then you can watch pretty much all of the latest movies and series on instaflixxer. I've been binge watching with my girlfriend for the last weeks =)
Alexandr Vasil'ev yes there strong but they broke down after a year of owning it (personally I didn't own one) but I had family and family friends who owned it
My dad always told me that the best car is not the one with more features, but the one that can get you home from work on a cold winter night. He was driving an old Fiat 128 at the time which, despite been worn and super rusty, it saved him from waiting for a bus that would sometimes take hours to come. I miss that car, in all it's bright yellow glory.
"My dad always told me that the best car is not the one with more features, but the one that can get you home from work on a cold winter night without trouble." He was right, and although I never owned a Lada or Skoda, the British car snobbery about these brands never sat easy with me. Many is the time I was waiting for a bus in the p1ssing cold rain and i would see a Skoda Estelle or Lada Riva or Niva go past and think to myself "why not just swallow pride and buy one" rather than saving for a "better" car? I eventually did get that "better" car and it was so unreliable, I found myself waiting for that same sodding bus in the p1ssing rain after the AA had towed it to a garage, yet again. The Lada and Skoda were never deserving of the Jasper Carrot childish jokes.
*VFTS But yeah, you are right. I hate these British reviews which try to make fun of socialist cars. Ladas are reliable, and well engineered cars with serious history.
My father had a Lada 21-something. Back in 2001 (I remember it was this year) we had a huge pothole in front of our 6 story residential block (where else) and my father happened to drive through it with a rear wheel, so the car couldn't get out. I was 9 years old and went "Oh no, what are we gonna do now?!". My father just waved over a neighbour and the two grabbed the car by the rear bumper and lifted the wheel out of the 40 cm deep pothole. My father never felt sentimental about the Lada, but once he bought an Audi 80 in 2005 he said "well, at least the Lada you could fix with a hammer and a sickle"
The Dacia Sandero of it's time. Bought by people who just wanted simple, honest to goodness transport for not alot of money. I kinda miss cars like this. In today's world of overcomplicated wheeled space ships full of touchscreens and electronic gizmos nobody actually needs, simple, unpretentious cars would be a very welcome anecdote to modernity.
My dad brought loads of cheap cars in the 70's, Lada's, Wartburgs, and Trabants! Don't know where he got them from but he had one after the other. And on a suburban Nth London side rd, boy did they stick out!
i did the same thing when i lived in england; we called them disposable cars. it cost less to get another junker than to try and MOT the one you already had, PLUS you could scrap your old one for 50 quid at the time.
My dad had one early 80's, 1600 station It rust just as bad as any contemporary Fords, Fiats, Renaults and Opels Was cheaper to fix And in the winters, when everyone was getting out of bed early, because they probably be pushstarting their cars after they drained their batteries trying to get it going in the cold My dad walked down with his crank, gave it 2 turns, and was off to his job
I wish I still had my orange Lada, it was the round headlight type. I’d always wanted the 1.600 with twin headlights model. I had my Lada back in the mid 70’s, I needed a car to get me to work as some signal boxes were far out to reach places, mine was second hand, but never broke down - unlike many friends cars ie, cortinas, princesses, maxis, capris etc. The only colleague who had a car as reliable as mine had a brand new Datsun Bluebird. That was my first full time job after leaving school so driving on a shoestring, they were the days though. Went to Inverness in it one year and got snowed in - then I bought two sacks of stones from a merchant shoved em in the boot over each well and drive all,the way to Sussex. You can not stop Lada.
Many years ago I had a 1981 Lada 1500 sedan that had a professionally rebuilt engine just before we got the car. It must have had a few mods done to it because it seemed quicker than a comparable Lada. Personally, I quite enjoyed the car and other than a few small issues, it was reliable. It made a number of cross Canada trips ( along with 1 trip through the US during the late 1980's ) and endured a fair amount of abuse at my hands, from taking it up to just a little over 160 km/hr (100 mph for you Yanks) on a long straight stretch with the throttle pinned and the engine at almost redline, to having to warm up the block with a blowtorch at -40 C in order to melt the antifreeze enough to flow through the water pump ( I was stupid and didn't mix the antifreeze strong enough ). Many times I wished that I would have kept that car and did something close to what the fellow with the 150 hp, lowered car did, as for me it was tons of fun and held many good memories.
These always outsold the Skoda Estelle in the UK, despite general opinion (including the motor trade) that the Skoda was the better car. I think that this was because the British, being such a conventional people, preferred the Lada because the engine was at the 'right' end of the car.
My Mum bought a brand new Lada 1200 Estate on 4 July 1975. One of the first imported, it did not have Lada on the back, but the Russian name. Same colour as the one at 4:43. Not sure if ours had headrests, though. Nor did it have a HRW, she had the dealer fit an after-market Smiths self-adhesive one. Was rough but was built like a tank. It demolished a brick-built gate post with just a dent and some scratching to the chrome front bumper. I don't recall any major issues with rust or reliability. From that POV, it was a great motor.
I've heard rumors about them exported to *every* part of civilised world, i didn't realize there were *so many* 'Gighoulists' in the UK. To understand my levels of shock, try to imagine bunch of russians would buy out *all* the Morris Marinas, and say "Oh, it's absolutely lovely, i've had it for 20 years now, and i didn't have a signle change of heart about it!"
Except Morris Marinas are not as good as the Ladas, to put it lightly. They will fall apart like LEGO bricks the moment it steps foot into Russia, whereas the Lada was built for Russia. There was simply no other car that could survive the Russian weather - it was basically the only viable choice, and the Russian mentality is that a car must be a reliable instrument and that there's no need for comfort in your car, because that's a filthy capitalist meme. It also didn't help that the models produced for the domestic market had substantially worse build quality than the older cars. And the demand was huge back in the days of the USSR because of the artificial deficit of the cars. The reason why they were in deficit is because they desperately tried shipping 45%+ of all cars abroad to obtain the much needed currency to pay off the loans and finance other things. Right now there is the same old wholesale selling tactic in the phone market. Companies order a ton of smartphones of the most popular models from factories to bring the cost of production of each phone down as low as possible, and have the price of smartphones low as well, further bolstering demand. That lets them make money even with those razor thin margins just because of how many smartphones end up getting sold.
My first car was a Lada, it gave me years of happy trouble free motoring, costing half the price of an equivalent western alternative, so for the price I paid, a car people didn’t laugh at would not have been a new car , it would have been an old rot box!!, I had the last laugh!! .
A friend bought new in 1979, don't think he serviced it often enough but on it went. On the M62 it was misfiring, looked under the bonnet got a light display, HT lids were sparking everywhere. Out came his wonder spray, all over the engine. Problem solved until next time.
had a Lada for a year, it was reliable, but had a few faults while I owned it, throttle pedal was very heavy to press, struggled to get to 60 mph, had a faulty light switch which I managed to fix myself without any replacement parts and one of the rear windows wouldn't wind up so had to jam a piece of wood under the glass to keep it closed, had left it unlocked in the street a couple of times and it never got touched. The heater was blowing cold, so ended pulling all the dash out to get to the matrix to fix it, had to replace the part from a scrap yard, had never done anything like that before, but managed to fix it so that it blew warm air until it started leaking from the heater valve, so back to cold air again, it didn't leak on cold.
He's not wrong. In the USSR you worked for a pittance or ended up in prison, because it was illegal to not have a job. You got no serious say in how you were ruled, and holding a door open for someone would just earn you a filthy look from them, as only state agents / informants tried such things. Vodka consumption was high, because with a life as awful yet inescapable as the average Russian's was, who wouldn't turn to drink?. (though it wasn't always Vodka... rather the pennies costing kind of gut dissolving drink that tastes like old locomotives smell)
I witnessed a car collision involving a Lada and a Mercedes. While the Lada suffered some minor body damage, the Mercedes was unrecognizable. Lada's were built like Russian tanks.
Back in 1982, I bought a brand new Lada 1600ES as my first car. Never regretted it. It was reliable which was more than could be said for the rusty Minis, Cortinas, Marinas etc that my mates at the time were struggling to keep roadworthy. I have to say though, the Riva 1300 I bought next was a dreadful car by comparison with the 1600, and sold it on after six months or so. I wish I’d kept that 1600!
Your Albanian. In 1982 did you live in Albanian? Borders were closed then. In Albanian usualy it was not aloud for cittizens to have cars, thats what i read. Or am i wrong?
A mate had one of these back in the 80s it was all he could afford it was as rough as an old tractor but he could repair it with a pair of pliers a coat hangar and some gaffa tape , it never let him down in some pretty heavy snowy winters in the North Of England that kept newer cars off the road and on their drives . It cost him two conkers and a frog to run and insure (he worked in Sunderland at the time which back then was terrible for car crime TWOCING----- taking without consent ) nobody ever broke into it or tried to steal it even when it was left in dark unlit crime ridden car parks ... served him well for about 5 years and then sold it for the same money he had paid for it ..with the money he saved by running this instead of a fancy western car or a Nissan car he put a large deposit down on a house in Durham and got ahead of the coming house price boom by a good few years he made a MASSIVE profit years later of about £500k on his house AFTER taking into consideration the cost of the mortgage.............so people who had the last laugh ? .
Over the period of 45 years I have owned many cars , from BMW's to TOYOTAS CELICAs',to AUDIS 100 GL ,and now I am on my fourth SAAB. But there is one car that I really enjoyed driving, it was slow,it was noise, a bit tempered on cold mornings ,and it NEVER let me down. I was never afraid to take it out for a drive, beacose I knew it would bring me back home. It was aLADA 1500 ESTATE!. Great little car . Even after all those years I still.miss it.
Like pulling up next to the latest hoyamzuki davidson with a flat tyre on my 1980 Jawa 350 two stroke, offer the use of the tyre irons in the factory toolkit and my puncture repair kit. "How will we pump the tyre up?"asks the flatee. "Easy", I say the "Jawa has a factory fitted air compressor" Then I remove the manually operated bicycle pump from where its fitted under the seat😁
Back in the day everything was made to be fixed by the owner same with bicycles, cars, now they want you to take it to the shop and pay big money for smallest thing.
Oh yes, the Jawa 350 is a legend. Suppose you have the 634 type. I did my final driving test on one of these. Now the company is in so deep shit they have to buy bikes from India...
@@AlejjSi a twin sport with velorex 700 sidecar a tramp and a style. None are fast but none have left me stranded either. Like air cooled VW cars they will run extremely badly for longer than others will run at all :)
My mother ran into the side of a Cortina in her lada the Cortina was badly damaged the lada only needed a front bumper rubber they were very strong if nothing else
Hi there - there are two episodes of The Car's The Star I'm keen to see again but can find nowhere. These are the episodes on the Jeep and the Volvo Estate. Do you have either of these, and if so would you please upload them? This message also goes for anyone reading this. Thank you!
I had a deluxe Lada Riva in the 1990s, it had wipers on the headlights that never touched the glass. It would cut out at 65mph, it used tubes in a tubless tyre which would give me punctures about ever two months. The boot lid would fly open when you hit a speed bump, all the window mechanisms failed and I had to use planks to keep them closed. It did about 18mpg, parking it in in tight spots was never going to happen unless you had arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the rear aluminium brake drums had to be smashed off so I could change the brake shoes as it had seized, the fuel tank split which emptied its contents into my boot. The velour seats would have all the family sliding about in our coordinated shell suits, charging us up with static which could knock unconscious the first person you touched. I am still in therapy and my nervous tick has almost gone..
@@mikhailgorbachev3721 ok that makes sense, but the name was written in cyrillic on domestic market cars. So the average British would see and understand nothing.
A friend of mine had several of these back in the day. It seems the early ones were tough as old boots, but the later face lifted ones less so. Maybe due to cost cutting (if that's even possible) in later models. I always thought the face lifted models with their rectangular headlights looked remarkably like the Fiat 131 Mirafiori. Possible that they shared some components & body parts given that the original was based on the Fiat 124. Only a guess though, perhaps somebody knows? We may deride cars like this now but back in the day, these were a very low cost work horse for the non fashion conscious motorist on a tight budget, so served a purpose and had their place. Kind of the Kremlin's answer to the Volvo 240....? OK, perhaps that's stretching it a bit.....😑. I might add that in 1980, you could get a brand new one of these with all manner of added extras such as headlamp washwipe, head restraints amongst others - a fairly decent sized and chunky family saloon for less than the price of an Austin Metro, which whilst quite up there and trendy looking at the time, were actually shit. I know because my dad had three of the blasted things on the trot before he learned his lesson the rather hard way. 😤
thats true. First one that were clones of Fiat, were called Lada Standard 1200 (for Yugoslavian market) and original Soviet name VAZ-Zhiguli. Later came this Lada with square lights and with 4 round lights with 1600cc engine.
@@uroskostic8570 With a completely different engine, body from thicker metal, stronger suspension, larger clutch, stronger gearbox, different locks and much more. How it looks is irrelevant. Yes, the body/chassis structure is basically the same, but they didn't just copy it. They paid the italians for the license and for the factory.
I'm not really familiar with cars available in Britain since I live on the other side of the pond. But the notion of what constitutes a "reliable" car in the video and below in the comments kind of baffles me "I've had this car for 10 years and now its got 85,000 miles, I think it will go for 100,000" or "I've had 4 of these cars in the last 10 years"? So on average the car lasts you 2.5 years and that's supposed to be reliable? Or a car that turns over 100,000 miles is a benchmark for reliability? I don't think I've ever seen a car that didn't make it to 100,000 miles unless it was totaled out in an accident. I'm not familiar with the whole cars not starting just because its cold out either. I've literally never experienced that unless my battery needed replacing, and I live in a temperate state with fairly cold winters. I'm sure there's some point where that one actually is a major concern, but not at any temperature down to at least -20 C. Or maybe I just have different expectations because I've never owned a car without fuel injection, OBD, computerized engine control units, ect?
All I know is that it was my first car in the '90s and was a RWD, when all my friends' cheap cars were FWD. Plus, it had a lot of space at the back, very useful for a teenager... Hell, from time to time I'm thinking of buying one and restomodding it with a Busso V6.
Why are quite alot of this series uploaded to youtube never the complete full episode? do people who recorded these episodes never bothered to record to whole of the episode?. And what's with the Old Top Gear in the title? The Car's the Star series had nothing to do with Top Gear as it was a separate series, though Quentin Willson was the presenter. They don't make motoring programs like this anymore, ones that you could actually learn from and sit and watch without wanting to throw a brick at the tele because of some annoying presenter.
Lada? This model was a Fiat 124... It was constructed un some countries around The world.... Italy by Fiat, Spain by Seat, Autovaz (Lada) in Toggliatigrado and Polski in Poland..... In a lot Of variants.
In the early 2000s I was offered a red 1986 D reg for free , it had been garaged all its life with just over 26k on the clock. Always regret not having it , but like other classics back then it was scrap .🙄
Mine wouldn't start if you gave it choke, our winters weren't cold enough for it, fierce heater and terrible with a side wind. I had a 1500 and it used to upset the escort 1100 drivers on the motorway when you overtook them in it.
I still have the toolkit from my Lada Niva, left the one in my Riva for the next poor soul but Lada's toolkits were a LOT better than what you got with your UK Ford or Austin, with all spanners in range you would need, a weird combo screwdriver, pry bars, levers, tyre levers, a stirrup foot pump which outperforms any barrel foot pump I have ever owned, a nasty plastic torch was in my Riva's set and all wrapped up in a super thick pretend leather or Olde English vinyl tool roll. My Niva one had a huge old Soviet hammer in it, like a blacksmiths heavy flattening hammer and that is on display in my living room on a kind of Soviet plinth in a bad attempt at art I did for my daughter to take to school, they loved it lol
I like the Lada.Nearly bought a 1600 in 1979,brand new,along with an Opel Kadet coupe,but in the end,a two year old Mk2 Ford Escort Mexico won out in the end.The 1600 Lada was very well appointed though!
This episode is a piece of motoring tv history. Andy Wilman who went on to produce Top Gear is the second hand car dealer at the end and the whole episode was scripted by a junior researcher who worked on the old top gear team (who also made this series) called Richard Porter. He went on to create Sniff Petrol and became the script editor for the revised Too Gear that Clarkson and Wilman revitalised following it shelving by the BBC in around 2000
Imagine if the USSR tried to compete on rally races using a Lada with racing engine along with it's off-road construction with companies like Mitsubishi,Subaru,BMW and the like with their best rally cars. I'd be laughing if the Lada won.
Although the Fiat 124 was a great little car, they didn't last 5 mins on the, god awful, Soviet roads, and on each car Fiat sent over for testing, before the deal was made, the chassis cracked. So the Soviets beefed everything up, and simplified it. Soviet people weren't interested in nippy little cars, that were a hoot to drive. What they're more concerned about was the thing starting not breaking down when it was -30 outside. Although they obviously had starter motors, they also still came with a starting handle until into the 1970's, just in case! If it did break down you couldn't just nip into your local dealer for new parts, because neither existed. So they had to be robust, but simple enough for someone with limited mechanical knowledge to maintain it. They sold more of these than Ford sold Model T's, and I'd love to know how many are still spluttering their was around the former USSR!
Zhiguli are mountains near the town Togliatti, where the Lada is being made. Also near is the town Samara, so do you see from where they took the names? But they turned down Zhiguli quickly and called it Lada, because they assumed that Zhiguli pronounced quite similar to "gigolo". Btw Lada is a name for a special type of a small boat, which is depicted in the company's logo.
@@isokessu And btw, in case you wonder that Togliatti sounds sort of italian, well, it is. Palmiro Togliatti was a leader of the italian communist party. He died in 1964 and they named the city after him. Originally, the name of the city was Stavropol on Volga. And Volga is the name of the river that gave the name to the company - VAZ (Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod). Not to be confused with the GAZ Volga car, that was procuced by a dofferent company.
There is confusion about Russian and Soviet. Soviet time Lada (before 1991) was tough, cheap and reliable. But Russian Lada (after 1991 break up of USSR till 2015) was cheap but unreliable because part come from dodgy suppliers who manufactured it from crap (or scrap). Today Lada is another version of Dacia for Renault Nissan. Original Lada was improved version of Fiat 124 which had epic fail during testing in USSR just after 3000 miles (it literally fall apart with body cracks) , so soviet engineers made about 500 changes to make 124 really tough. However Lada had not changed the Italian ergonomic - the car was design for short drivers (dwarfs ?) with very long hands and short legs. It is very uncomfortable for anyone taller than hobbit. No surprise it sell well in UK,indeed. Remember Rover 200 or old Jaguar ? How did tall people get in one of them ?
@@Ninnuam999 It was the same assembly line for domestic and export Ladas. The difference was that export cars has second extra quality control and the dealer can install additional equipment depends on the market it intended.
Ladas made for domestic market essentially differed from those designed for export, especially to so called capitalist countries. The exported ones were much superior. That's why absolutely all car owners in the USSR were quite good at mending cars 😁. They broke constantly, but the good part is that we became very resourceful.
My Dad bought a Lada 1200 in the mid 70’s. 10 years later, I was driving it round Telford - lots of dual carriageways, with lots of roundabouts. More than once I came up to a roundabout with a BMW behind me; the other side of it, and I’d left the Beemer behind. It had a very good heater, and seemed to thrive on rough weather. The trick with the Lada was to set the tappets up with the factory feeler gauge, the usual gauges being too narrow, and leading to inaccurate clearances.
My father bought one, he tried to teach me to drive in it, and I absolutely hated sitting in it, in the end he gave up, I finally got my driving license in the military, driving a Chevette.
I still feel the immense damage my 1 year old Riva done to my back and shoulders, horrendous pig of a car and no wonder I paid £100 for a car just over a year old and still in its three year MOT free window. Now my Lada Niva, an ex military 4x4 that had wound its way from Russia to a brief couple years in Holland before being brought to blighty, now that was effortless and maybe a bit noisy past 50 but it could pull the hind legs off a donkey and super awesome until the Bournemouth sea air and water did for it and it finally rotted out past salvation. Its quite ironic in nowadays I am a fervent collector of Soviet things including a very comprehensive and impressive Soviet watch collection. I drive one of history's most iconic car ever... Reliant Robin MK2 which I even went as far as to find out if when I go I could have it cremated with me but sadly they said nyetski matey...
I had a friend who had a Lada Niva (she needed a cheap 4x4). Then she told me she got it stolen... I asked "are you being serious!?" Unfortunately... she was! o.O I felt really bad for her... but at the same time, it was really hard not to laugh. That was more than 10 years ago.
These were a very capable 4x4 and up until a couple of years back a guy was importing new ones to the UK. I was also in a village in Romania 2 years , saw a new on there and plenty of older ones, talking to one of the locals ,he said the people who live up in the mountains love them, their tough, and will go anywhere especially in the winter and leave a lot of the modern smart 4x4's standing
In general, this competed with cars like the Mini, VW Bug, Citroen 2CV, although I'm sure it was even cheaper than those. The modded one looks cool, but the original owner put like $30K equivalent in it.
This was not a Top Gear production but rather a stand alone programme. At the time Quentin Wilson (Mr Cliché) was also a TG presenter hence the confusion.
Ha! more of this! This Lada was the Mercedes-Benz W124 of Russia, still going strong and both of them are to be found on todays roads! Lots of them, great cars!!
no reason to joke about the Lada. that car probably was at least as technically up to date and more reliable, than what British Leyland/Austin Rover/Rover delivered from the mid 70ies to the late 80ies . Compared to the Morris Marina/Ital that Lada was a sophisticated modern car
The problem is that you imply that because they're as good as a Leyland etc. they're not shit? No, it's just that Leyland and other British cars of the 1970's really were THAT bad.
@@Metal-Possum Exactly. We had 2 LADAs in the family. They were crap. The were not modern at all, especially if you compared it to a FIAT 128 or VW Rabbit/Golf and the quality was horrendous compared to the FIAT 124 on which they were based.
@@Metal-Possum To be fair it was mostly BL cars that were bad. Ford UK and independents were making cars that were fine, especially Ford when it came to mass-produced cars.
@@Metal-Possum true, but the lada was very cheap to buy at least , not only of cheap quality.
That was my question were they marketed in Great Britain because British cars were that bad or to make British cars look good?
Lada was for people who needed to get from point A to B with close to 0 running costs.
Very few British cars of that era could achieve that.
If you mean going from point A to B, it was indeed miraculous with British cars of that era...
Paol Vrobel just like having an own flat for a western person.
very few people had cars in ussr, getting from point a to point b meant you have to take a soviet bus xD
@@mrsnoop1820 people did not need an own car. it was luxury. because 90% of people lived in big cities with transportation systems that the US could not dream of. car in ussr = recreation purpose only
@@David-cy5zu I 'm was born in a post-soviet republic, where do you get your information from ... 90% lived in big cities, really? XD
Oh no, the aluminium brakes myth again. The rear drum is made from aluminium, BUT with a steel inner friction ring. So no, the brakes are NOT made from aluminium.
Bet there are more Ladas still driving around than Ford Sierras!
@Victor Murat So the Lada has drum brakes made to the same design as Ferraris?
Of 1950's vintage :)
@Victor Murat That would be down the Western Deep Levels number two shaft I would imagine :)
@@andrewallen9993 About the same in E-Europe
At last somebody said it. Thank you!
the perfection does not need an evolution ;)
you probably dont give a shit but if you are bored like me during the covid times then you can watch pretty much all of the latest movies and series on instaflixxer. I've been binge watching with my girlfriend for the last weeks =)
@Maddux Elian Yup, I've been using InstaFlixxer for months myself :D
Zahooglee :)
I owned one ,, it's more durable and reliable than all British junk .
Ur kidding right!? We have a lot of them in Lithuania and the lada is actual garbage :/
@@inactive859 a lot of them in 2020? i guess it says something about reliability.
Alexandr Vasil'ev yes there strong but they broke down after a year of owning it (personally I didn't own one) but I had family and family friends who owned it
@@inactive859 like someone told about russian cars "they're constantly wounded but don't die"
Alexandr Vasil'ev they do die and break down all the time
My dad always told me that the best car is not the one with more features, but the one that can get you home from work on a cold winter night.
He was driving an old Fiat 128 at the time which, despite been worn and super rusty, it saved him from waiting for a bus that would sometimes take hours to come. I miss that car, in all it's bright yellow glory.
"My dad always told me that the best car is not the one with more features, but the one that can get you home from work on a cold winter night without trouble."
He was right, and although I never owned a Lada or Skoda, the British car snobbery about these brands never sat easy with me. Many is the time I was waiting for a bus in the p1ssing cold rain and i would see a Skoda Estelle or Lada Riva or Niva go past and think to myself "why not just swallow pride and buy one" rather than saving for a "better" car? I eventually did get that "better" car and it was so unreliable, I found myself waiting for that same sodding bus in the p1ssing rain after the AA had towed it to a garage, yet again. The Lada and Skoda were never deserving of the Jasper Carrot childish jokes.
Since the englishman likes ridiculing/satirizing foreign cars, ask him what happened to British Leyland lmao
Have you watched top gear before? They spent most of the 1990s/2000s belittling British cars in favour of German ones... Lol
Those Englishmen are now driving Dacias!
Mr. Wilson is a bit of a dick, not the fun bit.
He didn't like British cars either. ruclips.net/video/Wu48FVwUnO8/видео.html
Which brand is considered the best then mr.
WFTS Lada is a monster rally car. They have a massive fan base on every Classic rally events.
*VFTS
But yeah, you are right. I hate these British reviews which try to make fun of socialist cars. Ladas are reliable, and well engineered cars with serious history.
Went to Cuba this year [2022] and old Lada's are everywhere.
My father had a Lada 21-something. Back in 2001 (I remember it was this year) we had a huge pothole in front of our 6 story residential block (where else) and my father happened to drive through it with a rear wheel, so the car couldn't get out. I was 9 years old and went "Oh no, what are we gonna do now?!". My father just waved over a neighbour and the two grabbed the car by the rear bumper and lifted the wheel out of the 40 cm deep pothole. My father never felt sentimental about the Lada, but once he bought an Audi 80 in 2005 he said "well, at least the Lada you could fix with a hammer and a sickle"
both cars are based
The Dacia Sandero of it's time. Bought by people who just wanted simple, honest to goodness transport for not alot of money. I kinda miss cars like this. In today's world of overcomplicated wheeled space ships full of touchscreens and electronic gizmos nobody actually needs, simple, unpretentious cars would be a very welcome anecdote to modernity.
👍🇨🇦
My dad brought loads of cheap cars in the 70's, Lada's, Wartburgs, and Trabants! Don't know where he got them from but he had one after the other. And on a suburban Nth London side rd, boy did they stick out!
i did the same thing when i lived in england; we called them disposable cars. it cost less to get another junker than to try and MOT the one you already had, PLUS you could scrap your old one for 50 quid at the time.
My dad had one early 80's, 1600 station
It rust just as bad as any contemporary Fords, Fiats, Renaults and Opels
Was cheaper to fix
And in the winters, when everyone was getting out of bed early, because they probably be pushstarting their cars after they drained their batteries trying to get it going in the cold
My dad walked down with his crank, gave it 2 turns, and was off to his job
I wish I still had my orange Lada, it was the round headlight type. I’d always wanted the 1.600 with twin headlights model.
I had my Lada back in the mid 70’s, I needed a car to get me to work as some signal boxes were far out to reach places, mine was second hand, but never broke down - unlike many friends cars ie, cortinas, princesses, maxis, capris etc. The only colleague who had a car as reliable as mine had a brand new Datsun Bluebird. That was my first full time job after leaving school so driving on a shoestring, they were the days though.
Went to Inverness in it one year and got snowed in - then I bought two sacks of stones from a merchant shoved em in the boot over each well and drive all,the way to Sussex. You can not stop Lada.
Wow. Never drove anything else, huh?
Many years ago I had a 1981 Lada 1500 sedan that had a professionally rebuilt engine just before we got the car. It must have had a few mods done to it because it seemed quicker than a comparable Lada. Personally, I quite enjoyed the car and other than a few small issues, it was reliable. It made a number of cross Canada trips ( along with 1 trip through the US during the late 1980's ) and endured a fair amount of abuse at my hands, from taking it up to just a little over 160 km/hr (100 mph for you Yanks) on a long straight stretch with the throttle pinned and the engine at almost redline, to having to warm up the block with a blowtorch at -40 C in order to melt the antifreeze enough to flow through the water pump ( I was stupid and didn't mix the antifreeze strong enough ). Many times I wished that I would have kept that car and did something close to what the fellow with the 150 hp, lowered car did, as for me it was tons of fun and held many good memories.
Call me mad but I remember when they were sold, I was a child at the time and somehow really liked them for their retro charm
Also looked like a child had drawn it.
@@cambs0181 Tell that to the Italians :D
Um, they wern't retro at the time:-)
That sleeper Lada at the end was honestly a really slick ride, I would rock that for sure.
These always outsold the Skoda Estelle in the UK, despite general opinion (including the motor trade) that the Skoda was the better car. I think that this was because the British, being such a conventional people, preferred the Lada because the engine was at the 'right' end of the car.
My Mum bought a brand new Lada 1200 Estate on 4 July 1975. One of the first imported, it did not have Lada on the back, but the Russian name. Same colour as the one at 4:43. Not sure if ours had headrests, though. Nor did it have a HRW, she had the dealer fit an after-market Smiths self-adhesive one. Was rough but was built like a tank. It demolished a brick-built gate post with just a dent and some scratching to the chrome front bumper. I don't recall any major issues with rust or reliability. From that POV, it was a great motor.
1:15
Richard Porter (of Sniff Petrol/Smith and sniff fame) in his 1st on screen appearance.
I've heard rumors about them exported to *every* part of civilised world, i didn't realize there were *so many* 'Gighoulists' in the UK.
To understand my levels of shock, try to imagine bunch of russians would buy out *all* the Morris Marinas, and say "Oh, it's absolutely lovely, i've had it for 20 years now, and i didn't have a signle change of heart about it!"
Except Morris Marinas are not as good as the Ladas, to put it lightly. They will fall apart like LEGO bricks the moment it steps foot into Russia, whereas the Lada was built for Russia. There was simply no other car that could survive the Russian weather - it was basically the only viable choice, and the Russian mentality is that a car must be a reliable instrument and that there's no need for comfort in your car, because that's a filthy capitalist meme. It also didn't help that the models produced for the domestic market had substantially worse build quality than the older cars. And the demand was huge back in the days of the USSR because of the artificial deficit of the cars. The reason why they were in deficit is because they desperately tried shipping 45%+ of all cars abroad to obtain the much needed currency to pay off the loans and finance other things.
Right now there is the same old wholesale selling tactic in the phone market. Companies order a ton of smartphones of the most popular models from factories to bring the cost of production of each phone down as low as possible, and have the price of smartphones low as well, further bolstering demand. That lets them make money even with those razor thin margins just because of how many smartphones end up getting sold.
Great series and informative. Really miss programs like this, and the old, proper Top Gear of the same era.
My first car was a Lada, it gave me years of happy trouble free motoring, costing half the price of an equivalent western alternative, so for the price I paid, a car people didn’t laugh at would not have been a new car , it would have been an old rot box!!, I had the last laugh!! .
I bought my Lada in 1983, but you should have seen my next car! (Another Lada).
I bought mine in 2011.
12:12 great sound
A friend bought new in 1979, don't think he serviced it often enough but on it went. On the M62 it was misfiring, looked under the bonnet got a light display, HT lids were sparking everywhere. Out came his wonder spray, all over the engine. Problem solved until next time.
had a Lada for a year, it was reliable, but had a few faults while I owned it, throttle pedal was very heavy to press, struggled to get to 60 mph, had a faulty light switch which I managed to fix myself without any replacement parts and one of the rear windows wouldn't wind up so had to jam a piece of wood under the glass to keep it closed, had left it unlocked in the street a couple of times and it never got touched.
The heater was blowing cold, so ended pulling all the dash out to get to the matrix to fix it, had to replace the part from a scrap yard, had never done anything like that before, but managed to fix it so that it blew warm air until it started leaking from the heater valve, so back to cold air again, it didn't leak on cold.
Lada:
The finest automobile ever built at gunpoint.
You compare USSR during 1930’s and 1970’s, totally different times
What an idiotic comment.
He's not wrong. In the USSR you worked for a pittance or ended up in prison, because it was illegal to not have a job. You got no serious say in how you were ruled, and holding a door open for someone would just earn you a filthy look from them, as only state agents / informants tried such things.
Vodka consumption was high, because with a life as awful yet inescapable as the average Russian's was, who wouldn't turn to drink?.
(though it wasn't always Vodka... rather the pennies costing kind of gut dissolving drink that tastes like old locomotives smell)
The soviet-made Ladas are actually good reliable cars much better than anything the british ever built. Quality went down some in early 90s though
@J.P. Craven I thought it remarkable that you saw more Lada's during the brutal winters Russia has. Been there, done that.
I witnessed a car collision involving a Lada and a Mercedes. While the Lada suffered some minor body damage, the Mercedes was unrecognizable. Lada's were built like Russian tanks.
Back in 1982, I bought a brand new Lada 1600ES as my first car. Never regretted it. It was reliable which was more than could be said for the rusty Minis, Cortinas, Marinas etc that my mates at the time were struggling to keep roadworthy. I have to say though, the Riva 1300 I bought next was a dreadful car by comparison with the 1600, and sold it on after six months or so. I wish I’d kept that 1600!
Your Albanian.
In 1982 did you live in Albanian?
Borders were closed then.
In Albanian usualy it was not aloud for cittizens to have cars, thats what i read.
Or am i wrong?
@@flovanhoorn5444 wrong
@@lamehomer oh okay, than we were wrongly informed in the west ( propaganda on our side )
Still better than most british cars
And the Lada was a very popular car in the eastern countries, judging by Azerbaijan, it still is
These cars got a lot of stick, but i tell you what they were really strong, not the best to drive but a good strong car
*stronk
Strong like garbage truck
I felt safe and in control in mine.
wife is strong like horse, smart like tractor
A mate had one of these back in the 80s it was all he could afford it was as rough as an old tractor but he could repair it with a pair of pliers a coat hangar and some gaffa tape , it never let him down in some pretty heavy snowy winters in the North Of England that kept newer cars off the road and on their drives . It cost him two conkers and a frog to run and insure (he worked in Sunderland at the time which back then was terrible for car crime TWOCING----- taking without consent ) nobody ever broke into it or tried to steal it even when it was left in dark unlit crime ridden car parks ... served him well for about 5 years and then sold it for the same money he had paid for it ..with the money he saved by running this instead of a fancy western car or a Nissan car he put a large deposit down on a house in Durham and got ahead of the coming house price boom by a good few years he made a MASSIVE profit years later of about £500k on his house AFTER taking into consideration the cost of the mortgage.............so people who had the last laugh ? .
15:28 25% interest. Sounds like what I read Camacho Auto Dealer in Palmdale charges for persons with bad credit to buy a car.
Where are the last 4 minutes ? Why leave it out ?
Lada is a very capable car reliable and very honest car roomy comfortable , brilliant car
Over the period of 45 years I have owned many cars , from BMW's to TOYOTAS CELICAs',to AUDIS 100 GL ,and now I am on my fourth SAAB.
But there is one car that I really enjoyed driving, it was slow,it was noise, a bit tempered on cold mornings ,and it NEVER let me down.
I was never afraid to take it out for a drive, beacose I knew it would bring me back home.
It was aLADA 1500 ESTATE!. Great little car . Even after all those years I still.miss it.
My grandfather have one from new for 30 years
Like pulling up next to the latest hoyamzuki davidson with a flat tyre on my 1980 Jawa 350 two stroke, offer the use of the tyre irons in the factory toolkit and my puncture repair kit.
"How will we pump the tyre up?"asks the flatee.
"Easy", I say the "Jawa has a factory fitted air compressor"
Then I remove the manually operated bicycle pump from where its fitted under the seat😁
Back in the day everything was made to be fixed by the owner same with bicycles, cars, now they want you to take it to the shop and pay big money for smallest thing.
Oh yes, the Jawa 350 is a legend. Suppose you have the 634 type. I did my final driving test on one of these. Now the company is in so deep shit they have to buy bikes from India...
@@AlejjSi a twin sport with velorex 700 sidecar a tramp and a style. None are fast but none have left me stranded either. Like air cooled VW cars they will run extremely badly for longer than others will run at all :)
@@andrewallen9993 Wow, nice, that'd be worth a fortune now in Czech Rep. :D Yes, true, and like most of the eastern production of that time.
@@AlejjSi Not to mention the CZ model 83 in 9mm Browning. Happy to carry +p ammo in it:)
over all . its a good and very reliable car . it works in + 35 and in - 40 .
My mother ran into the side of a Cortina in her lada the Cortina was badly damaged the lada only needed a front bumper rubber they were very strong if nothing else
Hi there - there are two episodes of The Car's The Star I'm keen to see again but can find nowhere. These are the episodes on the Jeep and the Volvo Estate. Do you have either of these, and if so would you please upload them?
This message also goes for anyone reading this.
Thank you!
I had a deluxe Lada Riva in the 1990s, it had wipers on the headlights that never touched the glass. It would cut out at 65mph, it used tubes in a tubless tyre which would give me punctures about ever two months. The boot lid would fly open when you hit a speed bump, all the window mechanisms failed and I had to use planks to keep them closed. It did about 18mpg, parking it in in tight spots was never going to happen unless you had arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the rear aluminium brake drums had to be smashed off so I could change the brake shoes as it had seized, the fuel tank split which emptied its contents into my boot. The velour seats would have all the family sliding about in our coordinated shell suits, charging us up with static which could knock unconscious the first person you touched. I am still in therapy and my nervous tick has almost gone..
zse-hoo-gly?? omg 😂😂
it was called "zhiguli" - жигули
They see the Z and the H and they don't understand that it's like the S in Pleasure. It doesn't come across in English.
@@mikhailgorbachev3721 ok that makes sense, but the name was written in cyrillic on domestic market cars. So the average British would see and understand nothing.
ВАЗ
Anglos cannot learn other languages
@@Ninnuam999 Are you sure about that?
When it comes to ladas Dennis knows his onions
A friend of mine had several of these back in the day. It seems the early ones were tough as old boots, but the later face lifted ones less so. Maybe due to cost cutting (if that's even possible) in later models. I always thought the face lifted models with their rectangular headlights looked remarkably like the Fiat 131 Mirafiori. Possible that they shared some components & body parts given that the original was based on the Fiat 124. Only a guess though, perhaps somebody knows? We may deride cars like this now but back in the day, these were a very low cost work horse for the non fashion conscious motorist on a tight budget, so served a purpose and had their place. Kind of the Kremlin's answer to the Volvo 240....? OK, perhaps that's stretching it a bit.....😑.
I might add that in 1980, you could get a brand new one of these with all manner of added extras such as headlamp washwipe, head restraints amongst others - a fairly decent sized and chunky family saloon for less than the price of an Austin Metro, which whilst quite up there and trendy looking at the time, were actually shit. I know because my dad had three of the blasted things on the trot before he learned his lesson the rather hard way. 😤
thats true. First one that were clones of Fiat, were called Lada Standard 1200 (for Yugoslavian market) and original Soviet name VAZ-Zhiguli. Later came this Lada with square lights and with 4 round lights with 1600cc engine.
@@uroskostic8570 they weren't clones
"facelifted models" didn't share anything with the 131.
The originals were already quite different to the 124
@@Random-nf7qb Lada 1200 known in USSR as kopeika, was made after Fiat , it looked the same.
@@uroskostic8570 With a completely different engine, body from thicker metal, stronger suspension, larger clutch, stronger gearbox, different locks and much more.
How it looks is irrelevant.
Yes, the body/chassis structure is basically the same, but they didn't just copy it. They paid the italians for the license and for the factory.
My dad was a huge fan and let me drive our Lada around a field when I was about 8 years old. We literally drove it up to the day it was scrapped
"Dennis Onions"
I’m sure he had a rough time in school
My thought exactly.
Does he know his.........?
He makes the ladies cry!
Frankie aubergines cousin innit!
I'm not really familiar with cars available in Britain since I live on the other side of the pond. But the notion of what constitutes a "reliable" car in the video and below in the comments kind of baffles me "I've had this car for 10 years and now its got 85,000 miles, I think it will go for 100,000" or "I've had 4 of these cars in the last 10 years"? So on average the car lasts you 2.5 years and that's supposed to be reliable? Or a car that turns over 100,000 miles is a benchmark for reliability? I don't think I've ever seen a car that didn't make it to 100,000 miles unless it was totaled out in an accident. I'm not familiar with the whole cars not starting just because its cold out either. I've literally never experienced that unless my battery needed replacing, and I live in a temperate state with fairly cold winters. I'm sure there's some point where that one actually is a major concern, but not at any temperature down to at least -20 C. Or maybe I just have different expectations because I've never owned a car without fuel injection, OBD, computerized engine control units, ect?
If I won the lottery, in amongst my classic car collection they’re would be a Lada. Great cars, always have, always will love them...
supernumery
Nah, not my job!!!
Ladas in the UK disappeared overnight
All I know is that it was my first car in the '90s and was a RWD, when all my friends' cheap cars were FWD. Plus, it had a lot of space at the back, very useful for a teenager...
Hell, from time to time I'm thinking of buying one and restomodding it with a Busso V6.
WTF?! @ 3:16 "known as the zewhoglee" Man, do some research!
It's жигули and it sounds like [zhee góo lee] as in Dr. (Zhi)vago.
Ты был бы прав товарищ
Why are quite alot of this series uploaded to youtube never the complete full episode? do people who recorded these episodes never bothered to record to whole of the episode?.
And what's with the Old Top Gear in the title? The Car's the Star series had nothing to do with Top Gear as it was a separate series, though Quentin Willson was the presenter. They don't make motoring programs like this anymore, ones that you could actually learn from and sit and watch without wanting to throw a brick at the tele because of some annoying presenter.
Lada? This model was a Fiat 124...
It was constructed un some countries around The world.... Italy by Fiat, Spain by Seat, Autovaz (Lada) in Toggliatigrado and Polski in Poland..... In a lot Of variants.
You can still get the lada Riva on ebay. Four to five grand.
In the early 2000s I was offered a red 1986 D reg for free , it had been garaged all its life with just over 26k on the clock. Always regret not having it , but like other classics back then it was scrap .🙄
The Fiat 124 was an amazing car.
Plenty of lada cars still around ? Not many of the fiat that they were based on, though??
Say what you want but in -30 weather it always started never you down that way
Mine wouldn't start if you gave it choke, our winters weren't cold enough for it, fierce heater and terrible with a side wind. I had a 1500 and it used to upset the escort 1100 drivers on the motorway when you overtook them in it.
@@pauldavies8638 the Lada comes with a manual start, the standard engine start may not work in cold weather but the manual start does.
It is not the complete episode.
I still have the toolkit from my Lada Niva, left the one in my Riva for the next poor soul but Lada's toolkits were a LOT better than what you got with your UK Ford or Austin, with all spanners in range you would need, a weird combo screwdriver, pry bars, levers, tyre levers, a stirrup foot pump which outperforms any barrel foot pump I have ever owned, a nasty plastic torch was in my Riva's set and all wrapped up in a super thick pretend leather or Olde English vinyl tool roll. My Niva one had a huge old Soviet hammer in it, like a blacksmiths heavy flattening hammer and that is on display in my living room on a kind of Soviet plinth in a bad attempt at art I did for my daughter to take to school, they loved it lol
I like the Lada.Nearly bought a 1600 in 1979,brand new,along with an Opel Kadet coupe,but in the end,a two year old Mk2 Ford Escort Mexico won out in the end.The 1600 Lada was very well appointed though!
That souped up brown one hasn't had an MOT since this aired in '97
Wonder what happened to it...
picked up two dates in a car like this back in the 90s a beige-colored one :D...had a BMW 323i at the time to , but it was at the workshop :)
Naturally..............
This episode is a piece of motoring tv history. Andy Wilman who went on to produce Top Gear is the second hand car dealer at the end and the whole episode was scripted by a junior researcher who worked on the old top gear team (who also made this series) called Richard Porter. He went on to create Sniff Petrol and became the script editor for the revised Too Gear that Clarkson and Wilman revitalised following it shelving by the BBC in around 2000
I didn't know Mark Corrigan had a tv career.
The Lada 4X4 has stood the test of time. The car not so much .
I wonder what happened to that souped up Lada? G512 SKN has not been taxed since May 1997 according to the DVLA.
It must still exist as the date of last logbook issued at the bottom of the details on DVLA says 6th March 2013.
Imagine if the USSR tried to compete on rally races using a Lada with racing engine along with it's off-road construction with companies like Mitsubishi,Subaru,BMW and the like with their best rally cars. I'd be laughing if the Lada won.
That actually did happen, most notably in Africa and Australia. The Ladas generally preformed well.
Although the Fiat 124 was a great little car, they didn't last 5 mins on the, god awful, Soviet roads, and on each car Fiat sent over for testing, before the deal was made, the chassis cracked. So the Soviets beefed everything up, and simplified it. Soviet people weren't interested in nippy little cars, that were a hoot to drive. What they're more concerned about was the thing starting not breaking down when it was -30 outside. Although they obviously had starter motors, they also still came with a starting handle until into the 1970's, just in case! If it did break down you couldn't just nip into your local dealer for new parts, because neither existed. So they had to be robust, but simple enough for someone with limited mechanical knowledge to maintain it. They sold more of these than Ford sold Model T's, and I'd love to know how many are still spluttering their was around the former USSR!
3:16 - "Zehoogley"??? What the hell is that?
Zhiguli are mountains near the town Togliatti, where the Lada is being made. Also near is the town Samara, so do you see from where they took the names? But they turned down Zhiguli quickly and called it Lada, because they assumed that Zhiguli pronounced quite similar to "gigolo". Btw Lada is a name for a special type of a small boat, which is depicted in the company's logo.
@@AlejjSi thanks captain :)
@@isokessu And btw, in case you wonder that Togliatti sounds sort of italian, well, it is. Palmiro Togliatti was a leader of the italian communist party. He died in 1964 and they named the city after him. Originally, the name of the city was Stavropol on Volga. And Volga is the name of the river that gave the name to the company - VAZ (Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod). Not to be confused with the GAZ Volga car, that was procuced by a dofferent company.
He fucking butchered it
zhiguli
There is confusion about Russian and Soviet. Soviet time Lada (before 1991) was tough, cheap and reliable. But Russian Lada (after 1991 break up of USSR till 2015) was cheap but unreliable because part come from dodgy suppliers who manufactured it from crap (or scrap). Today Lada is another version of Dacia for Renault Nissan. Original Lada was improved version of Fiat 124 which had epic fail during testing in USSR just after 3000 miles (it literally fall apart with body cracks) , so soviet engineers made about 500 changes to make 124 really tough. However Lada had not changed the Italian ergonomic - the car was design for short drivers (dwarfs ?) with very long hands and short legs. It is very uncomfortable for anyone taller than hobbit. No surprise it sell well in UK,indeed. Remember Rover 200 or old Jaguar ? How did tall people get in one of them ?
What about the imports (outside the Soviet Union) does this rule apply to them too?
@@Ninnuam999 It was the same assembly line for domestic and export Ladas. The difference was that export cars has second extra quality control and the dealer can install additional equipment depends on the market it intended.
@@AlexMiddleearth Nice, thanks for the information.
Ladas made for domestic market essentially differed from those designed for export, especially to so called capitalist countries. The exported ones were much superior. That's why absolutely all car owners in the USSR were quite good at mending cars 😁. They broke constantly, but the good part is that we became very resourceful.
These were solid cars. There were quite a few in Guyana
Of course the Lada enthusiast is called "Dennis Onions"
This opera singer background noise in the beginning was one of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard.
My Dad bought a Lada 1200 in the mid 70’s. 10 years later, I was driving it round Telford - lots of dual carriageways, with lots of roundabouts. More than once I came up to a roundabout with a BMW behind me; the other side of it, and I’d left the Beemer behind. It had a very good heater, and seemed to thrive on rough weather. The trick with the Lada was to set the tappets up with the factory feeler gauge, the usual gauges being too narrow, and leading to inaccurate clearances.
Hmm, was it souped up? Even the four cylinder BMW 3 series' (not a quick car) would out-perform a Riva 1200 comfortably
Matty Lamb No, it just seemed to like going around roundabouts! (And I’m not a boy-racer, btw lol)
My father bought one, he tried to teach me to drive in it, and I absolutely hated sitting in it, in the end he gave up, I finally got my driving license in the military, driving a Chevette.
I still feel the immense damage my 1 year old Riva done to my back and shoulders, horrendous pig of a car and no wonder I paid £100 for a car just over a year old and still in its three year MOT free window. Now my Lada Niva, an ex military 4x4 that had wound its way from Russia to a brief couple years in Holland before being brought to blighty, now that was effortless and maybe a bit noisy past 50 but it could pull the hind legs off a donkey and super awesome until the Bournemouth sea air and water did for it and it finally rotted out past salvation. Its quite ironic in nowadays I am a fervent collector of Soviet things including a very comprehensive and impressive Soviet watch collection. I drive one of history's most iconic car ever... Reliant Robin MK2 which I even went as far as to find out if when I go I could have it cremated with me but sadly they said nyetski matey...
I wonder what these people who embraced 'a simple car' are driving now. Is there any such thing, or do they have to drive something ancient, as I do.
My father owned the Fiat versions of the 124, 125, 125 Special and the 132 Berlineta 1600. All of them were great performing automobiles.
I love lads cars , wish I could find one today and enjoy it
Come to eastern europe, there are a lot of them still around…
Why does it sound like there’s a moth stuck in my headphones
I had a friend who had a Lada Niva (she needed a cheap 4x4).
Then she told me she got it stolen... I asked "are you being serious!?"
Unfortunately... she was! o.O
I felt really bad for her... but at the same time, it was really hard not to laugh.
That was more than 10 years ago.
Poor guy was really desperate... :D
These were a very capable 4x4 and up until a couple of years back a guy was importing new ones to the UK. I was also in a village in Romania 2 years , saw a new on there and plenty of older ones, talking to one of the locals ,he said the people who live up in the mountains love them, their tough, and will go anywhere especially in the winter and leave a lot of the modern smart 4x4's standing
Love the usage of Pet Shop Boys music in this. I'm a big fan of their music, and of course, old Top Gear.
And "Soviet" by Electronic.
Yeah the new TG is shit.
Lada. No bullshit. Perfect from the beginning.
Best value for money ever
Is no one going to talk about female Freddie Mercury at 6:56
Now you come to mention it there is a resemblance. Lol!
and her Dad
Unfortunate teeth aside she's strangely attractive
DADAAAAA, JUST KILLED A MAN
That's exactly what I thought,when I saw that lady!! 😂😂
in my country this car is has a repurtation of a tank. i once drove one into a wall and only the glass of the headlamp had a scrape
Yes they are like tanks but crash the same one into a different car and the lada will win
An actual Tank though can turn on a sixpence, and is much more fun offroad, onroad... and basically anywhere :D .
Check out www.lada.ru to see what they're making now. Lada is now owned by Nissan & Renault.
In general, this competed with cars like the Mini, VW Bug, Citroen 2CV, although I'm sure it was even cheaper than those. The modded one looks cool, but the original owner put like $30K equivalent in it.
This was not a Top Gear production but rather a stand alone programme. At the time Quentin Wilson (Mr Cliché) was also a TG presenter hence the confusion.
The description at the beginning is funny and very accurate at the same time. 😂
niva was a brilliant 4wd pity its not officially imported now
Obviously you haven't seen what Top Gear did to British made Morris Marina's!
Ha! more of this! This Lada was the Mercedes-Benz W124 of Russia, still going strong and both of them are to be found on todays roads! Lots of them, great cars!!
Actually, the Lada was the peoples car of Russia. Like the VW was in Germany.
@@chaosdemonwolf1 i think the comparison to the W124 was comparing how durable and reliable they are, not about sophistication or price.
@@mavrickmiller2755 Point taken.
OEB777R as of 2021 is STILL taxed and MOT'd!
We had this garbage can here in Canada in the mid 90s. I only ever saw them at the Toronto auto show.