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We had a Lada 1200 when I was a kid. Mid/late 1970s. The car was a 1:1 copy of the Fiat 127 if I remember correctly. It served my family well for many years, a

We had a Lada 1200 when I was a kid. Mid/late 1970s. The car was a 1:1 copy of the Fiat 127 if I remember correctly. It served my family well for many years, and for us, it was "sort of" rock solid. That a Lada was "rock solid" was in no way the norm. People were saying that we had a Wednesday model, meaning it was assembled on a Wednesday. The saying goes that the quality of cars built on Monday/Tuesday was impacted by the hangovers the workers had from all the vodka drinking during the weekend. For Thursday/Friday cars, the workers were already mentally gone on the weekend but on wednesdays the workers were fresh and motivated, and did their job proper. We were lucky and that car took us kids on many road trips all across Europe. I remember that the car seat was covered in plastic, and on our first trip from cold Denmark to sunny Italy, we all got burn marks from the seats and had to stop buying some covers.

jojobas 11mo ago
Export cars were made with some special care, for years buying a car destined for export was preferable to a brand new one built for domestic market, even if "scratch and dent". My father always carried a bunch of membranes for the fuel pump, a spare accessories belt, distributor, fuses and possibly something else. Every item in the list was a result of limping somewhere with a vague hope of finding the part in stock - crap quality compounded with deficit made pretty much every trip a bit of a gamble. Driving schools also taught maintenance and troubleshooting, having a private car was perceived somewhat like a mechanic hobby. I doubt it was the norm with Western/Japanese cars by the 70s.
- lnsru 11mo ago
  Probably it’s worth mentioning that the repair shops as we know them today didn’t exist in the world of Soviet cars. So everybody was responsible for his car and the owners were forced to spent weekends under the car in garage blocks sharing tools, knowledge and beer.
  - somenameforme 11mo ago
    The manuals for the Lada were epic. In a quick search for an original one I came upon this [1] which is an English version one, which is even better than what I was looking for! It describes the entire car's operation and mechanism in extensive detail along with descriptions of how to replace parts, what might go wrong, and more. I'm not sure that 'just send it to the repair shop' was an overall improvement in society in so many ways. In modern times those shops are infamous for exploiting people's ignorance and ripping them off to an absurd degree, and it primarily affects the lower socioeconomic groups within society, since the upper groups tend to cycle through relatively newer cars more regularly, in part to avoid having to deal with long term maintenance issues. [1] - https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6025672/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6025672/mode/2up
    - ACCount37 11mo ago
      Repair shops are a necessity. Not everyone can learn even the basics of car maintenance. There are a lot of drivers on the roads today who wouldn't be able to do even something as simple as top up the oil or change the tires. And actual repairs, even on older simpler cars, even with an exhaustive technical manual and modern learning aids like video tutorials or AR overlays? Fat fucking chance. There are ways around that. You can keep the cars simple to repair and also expensive and unavailable, so that only the people with tech know-how and/or willingness to learn it get them. Make cars as tools for professionals and tech enthusiasts, like PCs were in the 80s or construction equipment is now. Or you can make the cars cheap and disposable enough that if one fails, you can just send it to a scrapyard and get a new one. I don't like either of those workarounds, so repair shops are the least bad option.
      - somenameforme 11mo ago
        > Not everyone can learn even the basics of car maintenance. Why do you think? Outside of extremely rare disabilities, I do not understand why you would believe this.
        11mo ago
- janisorlovs 11mo ago
  Anything with “export” variant was considered better (in consumer goods 100%). Even butter
  - Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
    Which has now looped around because you can get cheap 'export' beer in grocery stores here (western Europe) which is pretty much guaranteed to be produced in the same breweries as the premium brands like Heineken. These breweries never stop producing because empty tanks are wasteful.
- xattt 11mo ago
  The Canadian export versions of the Lada full-size sedans had doors reinforced with beams for increased safety. So structurally, they were indeed built a little better. There were several other features like western carburetors and emissions controls, but these were likely be a “temporary” improvement for the domestic market as those parts wear out and would likely be replaced with local parts. The thing about JDMs is they tend to be more desirable than export versions, because of whatever quirkiness that gets left behind at the time of export.
  - jojobas 11mo ago
    There's no such thing as a Lada full-size sedan. The longest one was something like 4.15m long. Contemporary American "mid-size sedans" were over 5 meters long and even "compact sedans" were quite a bit bigger.
    - xattt 11mo ago
      My mistake, I meant the 2106/2107s that were sold in Canada. I am not sure if wagon variants were part of the lineup as well. I said full-size to mean the “largest” RWD sedan offering to contrast with the 2121, 2108 and variants that were also sold in Canada. Make no mistake these cars were small compared to contemporary offerings.
jabl 11mo ago
> We had a Lada 1200 when I was a kid. Mid/late 1970s. The car was a 1:1 copy of the Fiat 127 if I remember correctly. Ladas were common over here until the late 80'ies. They all but disappeared during the 1990'ies. They weren't exactly known for quality compared to Western cars, but they were cheap, and easy to fix by yourself if you were so inclined. And yes, the story behind the Lada was that the Soviets made a deal with Fiat to acquire an obsolete factory. So the entire factory was dismantled and shipped to the USSR. And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades.
- usrnm 11mo ago
  > And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades. That's not true, though. The first models were, practically, Fiats, but then they diverged and the second generation (produced in the 80s) had significant changes. Niva had nothing to do with Fiat from day 1, it was developed internally
  - prmoustache 11mo ago
    The Niva was actually a very modern car when it was released. I think it was one of the first unibodied AWD.
    - darkwater 11mo ago
      I'm not sure when the Niva was initially made but I have memories of rusted Nivas from the late 80s to early '90s already.
      - prmoustache 11mo ago
        It was released in 1977 and afaik is still sold under the "niva legend" name in several countries while the "niva" name is also used for the rebranding of some GM based models. It is not the car you'd want to commute on, or drive in highways but it is a super decent offroader. I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.
brnt 11mo ago
There were Lada dealers up until the nineties here in NL, but few people drove them. I've never heard anyone describe them as reliable though. To the contrary.
eptcyka 11mo ago
It would’ve been great if it was a 1:1 copy, but the soviets made the design cheaper to produce and less reliable.
cafard 11mo ago
According to a bit in one of Arthur Haley's potboilers, American manufacturers would ensure that VIPs got "mid-week cars", with the notion that the last weekend's drinking would have lost its effect by Tuesday, and that the next weekend' drinking wouldn't start until Thursday night. Assuming that this is so, I wonder what effect Monday Night Football had on Tuesday quality.

jojobas 11mo ago

Export cars were made with some special care, for years buying a car destined for export was preferable to a brand new one built for domestic market, even if "scratch and dent". My father always carried a bunch of membranes for the fuel pump, a spare accessories belt, distributor, fuses and possibly something else. Every item in the list was a result of limping somewhere with a vague hope of finding the part in stock - crap quality compounded with deficit made pretty much every trip a bit of a gamble. Driving schools also taught maintenance and troubleshooting, having a private car was perceived somewhat like a mechanic hobby. I doubt it was the norm with Western/Japanese cars by the 70s.

lnsru 11mo ago
Probably it’s worth mentioning that the repair shops as we know them today didn’t exist in the world of Soviet cars. So everybody was responsible for his car and the owners were forced to spent weekends under the car in garage blocks sharing tools, knowledge and beer.
- somenameforme 11mo ago
  The manuals for the Lada were epic. In a quick search for an original one I came upon this [1] which is an English version one, which is even better than what I was looking for! It describes the entire car's operation and mechanism in extensive detail along with descriptions of how to replace parts, what might go wrong, and more. I'm not sure that 'just send it to the repair shop' was an overall improvement in society in so many ways. In modern times those shops are infamous for exploiting people's ignorance and ripping them off to an absurd degree, and it primarily affects the lower socioeconomic groups within society, since the upper groups tend to cycle through relatively newer cars more regularly, in part to avoid having to deal with long term maintenance issues. [1] - https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6025672/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-6025672/mode/2up
  - ACCount37 11mo ago
    Repair shops are a necessity. Not everyone can learn even the basics of car maintenance. There are a lot of drivers on the roads today who wouldn't be able to do even something as simple as top up the oil or change the tires. And actual repairs, even on older simpler cars, even with an exhaustive technical manual and modern learning aids like video tutorials or AR overlays? Fat fucking chance. There are ways around that. You can keep the cars simple to repair and also expensive and unavailable, so that only the people with tech know-how and/or willingness to learn it get them. Make cars as tools for professionals and tech enthusiasts, like PCs were in the 80s or construction equipment is now. Or you can make the cars cheap and disposable enough that if one fails, you can just send it to a scrapyard and get a new one. I don't like either of those workarounds, so repair shops are the least bad option.
    - somenameforme 11mo ago
      > Not everyone can learn even the basics of car maintenance. Why do you think? Outside of extremely rare disabilities, I do not understand why you would believe this.
      - 11mo ago
janisorlovs 11mo ago
Anything with “export” variant was considered better (in consumer goods 100%). Even butter
- Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
  Which has now looped around because you can get cheap 'export' beer in grocery stores here (western Europe) which is pretty much guaranteed to be produced in the same breweries as the premium brands like Heineken. These breweries never stop producing because empty tanks are wasteful.
xattt 11mo ago
The Canadian export versions of the Lada full-size sedans had doors reinforced with beams for increased safety. So structurally, they were indeed built a little better. There were several other features like western carburetors and emissions controls, but these were likely be a “temporary” improvement for the domestic market as those parts wear out and would likely be replaced with local parts. The thing about JDMs is they tend to be more desirable than export versions, because of whatever quirkiness that gets left behind at the time of export.
- jojobas 11mo ago
  There's no such thing as a Lada full-size sedan. The longest one was something like 4.15m long. Contemporary American "mid-size sedans" were over 5 meters long and even "compact sedans" were quite a bit bigger.
  - xattt 11mo ago
    My mistake, I meant the 2106/2107s that were sold in Canada. I am not sure if wagon variants were part of the lineup as well. I said full-size to mean the “largest” RWD sedan offering to contrast with the 2121, 2108 and variants that were also sold in Canada. Make no mistake these cars were small compared to contemporary offerings.

jabl 11mo ago

> We had a Lada 1200 when I was a kid. Mid/late 1970s. The car was a 1:1 copy of the Fiat 127 if I remember correctly. Ladas were common over here until the late 80'ies. They all but disappeared during the 1990'ies. They weren't exactly known for quality compared to Western cars, but they were cheap, and easy to fix by yourself if you were so inclined. And yes, the story behind the Lada was that the Soviets made a deal with Fiat to acquire an obsolete factory. So the entire factory was dismantled and shipped to the USSR. And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades.

usrnm 11mo ago
> And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades. That's not true, though. The first models were, practically, Fiats, but then they diverged and the second generation (produced in the 80s) had significant changes. Niva had nothing to do with Fiat from day 1, it was developed internally
- prmoustache 11mo ago
  The Niva was actually a very modern car when it was released. I think it was one of the first unibodied AWD.
  - darkwater 11mo ago
    I'm not sure when the Niva was initially made but I have memories of rusted Nivas from the late 80s to early '90s already.
    - prmoustache 11mo ago
      It was released in 1977 and afaik is still sold under the "niva legend" name in several countries while the "niva" name is also used for the rebranding of some GM based models. It is not the car you'd want to commute on, or drive in highways but it is a super decent offroader. I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.

brnt 11mo ago

There were Lada dealers up until the nineties here in NL, but few people drove them. I've never heard anyone describe them as reliable though. To the contrary.

eptcyka 11mo ago

It would’ve been great if it was a 1:1 copy, but the soviets made the design cheaper to produce and less reliable.

cafard 11mo ago

According to a bit in one of Arthur Haley's potboilers, American manufacturers would ensure that VIPs got "mid-week cars", with the notion that the last weekend's drinking would have lost its effect by Tuesday, and that the next weekend' drinking wouldn't start until Thursday night. Assuming that this is so, I wonder what effect Monday Night Football had on Tuesday quality.