We imagine that many a Russian Lada has been compared to a ticking time bomb – which is not to say that there aren't any good Ladas out in the wild, of course – but the example you'll see in the video pasted below takes the cake. It is, quite literally, an Improvised Explosive Device.
To paraphrase the Almond Joy commercial, sometimes you feel like a tint, sometimes you don't. In states like California, having any tint on your front windows is verboten. It's only casually enforced, but it's still illegal. In that case, something like this setup might come in handy: a Russian gent on installed two power windows in one door, and tinted one of them.
Lada? Racing? We've got to be kidding, right? Only we're not. While the Russian automaker may not have the motorsport pedigree of, say, Ferrari or Porsche, there's reason enough to believe it's getting serious.
It's not every day that Lada comes out with a new car. In fact, the Samara – which the model you see here is set to replace – has been on the market pretty much unchanged since 1997. (And that's not even their oldest model: the Niva 4x4 has been out there since 1977.) So the launch of the new Granta is a bit of an occasion for the Russian automaker and its parent company, Noah Joseph
If you happen to have a soft spot for ugly, inexpensive four-wheel-drive machines that can outperform substantially newer and more expensive vehicles, don't watch the video after the jump.
During the first quarter of 2010, Russian automaker Avtovaz lost 2.6 billion rubles ($85M U.S.). In the second quarter it made almost a third of that back when it posted a net profit of one billion rubles ($32.7M U.S). The spike came courtesy of Russia's cash-for-clunkers program, which more than doubled the firm's sales over Q1 numbers to 149,100 cars.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but with hindsight being 20-20, how many failed ventures can be summed up by that same excuse? Just last year, Russia was looking to foreign investors as one of the most promising emerging markets in the world. Renault got locked into a bidding war with Fiat and General Motors for a large stake in Autovaz, Russia's largest automaker, known to consumers for producing Lada.
Kamaz Dakar rally team in Moscow's Red Square
Lada C Concept - Click above for a high-res gallery
Click above for hi-res gallery of the Lada C-Cross concept
Relentless deal maker Carlos Ghosn has never stopped looking for any partnership that would give Renault a plum position in a profitable market. Already close to a Nissan deal with Chrysler working on Renault and Nissan deals in the Middle East, his latest paramour is in Russia. Ghosn has se
The list of great minds and technological marvels that Russia has gifted the world is most impressive: Sikorsky, Sputnik, Hind, Mig, Ivan Drago (the bad guy in Rocky IV). The fact is, though, that none of those names have to do with cars. The list of automobiles that the Russians have foisted on the world is somewhat ignominious: Lada, Volga, Oda, Moskvitch. Regrettably, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov is so confident that that isn't going to change any
Like most Russian automotive projects, this has been a long time coming -- Russia's (in)famous LADA cars are finally nearing their racing debut in the World Touring Car Championship.
Reuters reported Wednesday that Russia's largest automaker AvotVaz and its second-largest bank VTB have teamed up to implement a $4-5 billion dollar automotive "mega-project" to produce new engines and cars.
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