Comments on: Soviet Car Ads, 1960s / 1970s

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 10 Oct 2024 14:03:55 +0000

Fiats of the era were themselves horrible cars. Even the Spyder was fun but very unreliable – my father even had a spare junked one in the garage for parts to keep his going. So I can’t imagine what a Russian copy would be like.

By: Roel

Roel — Mon, 10 Oct 2024 08:44:50 +0000

Of course the car in pic 2 -5 is the Lada which is almost exactly the same as the Fiat 124 Berline. The Fiat was the starting point for the Lada. I think they got russian steel in return which made it onto my car, the Fiat 124 sport coupé and also on the Fiat 124 Spider which was very popular in California in the seventies as an affordable little convertible. But the russian steel is horrible, I can tell you. No wonder very little 124 sport coupé’s survived the rot of the russian steel.

By: Chad Sanborn

Chad Sanborn — Mon, 10 Oct 2024 01:20:31 +0000

Id love to have the black one in the 6th photo. Its a thing of beauty! Tint the windows black and it would be bad @ss

By: notme

notme — Sun, 09 Oct 2024 20:14:26 +0000

@Randall: the ones you mention are not the only ones that are copies. The Lada design was officially licensed from Fiat and is equal to a Fiat 124". The Volga is a copy of a "Ford 12m as sold in Europe from 1967 on. And the ZAZ is a 1:1 copy of the German NSU Prinz 4. NSU was later on acquired by Audi.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 09 Oct 2024 18:26:45 +0000

r randall

The grille on the Volga is certainly similar to the Nova’s, but the rest of the proportions are very different.

As for the rear-engined ZAZ 966, it’s actually an NSU Prinz 4 copy. The nickname for it in Russian is “Ushastiy”, meaning “ear-y”, because of the intakes. The later 968M models did away with the “ears” in favor of flush intakes.

By: Judas Gutenberg

Judas Gutenberg — Sun, 09 Oct 2024 15:37:17 +0000

i had no idea that 60s casual fashions had actually reached so far into soviet culture.