For years, old Ladas were trading hands for silly money and being shipped back to former Warsaw Pact countries where they would either be run into the ground or broken for spares.Not long after the big EU expansion, many Europeans arrived in the UK to find a large, buoyant second hand car market which simply did not exist abroad. A ten year old "good runner, one owner" Ford Mondeo for £500, less still a 100,000 mile well thrashed German badged car said to have "pulling power", whatever that is, for a grand or two, would be impossible to find in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary or Slovakia. Consequently, thousands were snapped up, and often taken abroad, regardless of being RHD. Poland and Lithuania banned re-registration of RHD imports until a European court ruling in 2014.
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