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Well its been scrapped for 11 years :).
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I can remember about 15 yrs ago, a Russian cargo ship loading them aboard on the south coast. Repatriation as a profitable deck cargo, for the crew perhaps?
It`s probably `come back` as a Luxo-Barge and is sniggering right now, Rattle ;-)
Ever see `Christine`........?
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I can remember about 15 yrs ago a Russian cargo ship loading them aboard on the south coast. Repatriation as a profitable deck cargo for the crew perhaps?
I read an article around the same sort of time about a group of Brits who made a fair living buying/scrounging them here for virtually nothing, driving them back to Russia where even the worst examples were worth good money, and selling them on at vast profit. Used to make them a tidy living, even after paying off the mafia and officials along the way, and paying for the return journey.
The Poles are doing it now with run of the mill Fords and the like here. My old mk2 Mondeo was bought by a Polish trader who drove it home to sell on.
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Yes Rattle, that's a nasty old Lada all right. I know one when I see one too, having had much truck (and I use the word advisedly) with one. Of course ours was an earlier model than your dad's, and better looking for it despite the brown vinyl roof until it blew away. Looked like a Fiat 124 but didn't drive like one.
My wife who must be quite physically strong learned to drive in it. She absolutely loved the ghastly thing. But I took against it in the end despite invested effort and indeed my great tolerance where four-wheeled trolleys with internal combustion engines are concerned.
Edited by Lud on 06/11/2009 at 21:59
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Does that old Panda in the background belong to doctorchris?
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No idea who that Panda was. This picture was taken in Jan 1998 so that Panda would have been quite new then. I seen to remember it being an L reg.
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>>so that Panda would have been quite new then.>>
L would be around 1993.
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Yep 1993-94. So it was 4-5 years old. Ok so it wasn't that new.
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I had a pal (now sadly departed) who used to drive new Lada Rivas and Skoda Estelles in the 1980s and 1990s.
He went all over the UK in them, clocking up quite substantial mileages for each vehicle, and was never ever let down by any of them.
Might not have been the epitome of luxury motoring, but getting from A to B and back again without drama was much more important.
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Sadly every trip in that Lada was a drama in true Rattle fashion. Tyre bursts, burnt out clutches, leaking radiators, broken gearboxes.... mind you my dads idea of a full service was an MOT.
Still he did about 40,000 miles in it without so much as an oil change.
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Lada Rivas and Skoda Estelles
Stuartli: I am sorry your friend has departed, and I am sorry that you mention Ladas and Estelles in the same sentence like that as if they were the same sort of thing. Shame on you.
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Ive mentioned before.
I saw a back wheel come off this model of Lada, once. This event was heralded by a great cloud of what looked like smoke from under the back of the car, but was actually a dried mud from under the rear arch, as the wheel jammed under there, but then burst free.
looking at it when I got level, the rear drum had gone with the wheel - which had bounded off into a field, after a couple of 15` hops on the road.
All this happened on a long hill, South of Bretton crossroads and I was about 1/4 mile behind.
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Bet the neighbours were pleased to see the back of it!
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Does your choice of forum username come from your memories of this Lada by any chance rattle??? :-)
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Nope my name comes from my fiest car, N731 ***, the seller completly conned me and I bought a car with a duff engine which had a ratteling chain, worn camshaft with hardy any lobes left, warn piston rings etc. I put more oil in that thing every week than I would need to every two years in my current car.
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...I saw a back wheel come off this model of Lada, once...
I had a front wheel come off a Nissan Bluebird on road test - someone forgot to tighten the wheel nuts.
Stupid thing is the wheel tends to accelerate past the car.
It was the near side and with my weight in the driver's seat, the car came to a halt without too much grinding of metal on road.
No damage done, as I recall.
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I saw a back wheel come off this model of Lada once.
Rear drums were aluminium, they used to corrode themselves to the half-shaft. Most Ladas had drums which were broken around the edges by people hammering them to get them off.
The easy way was to take off the wheel and the two drum locating studs, apply the handbrake and drive the car. the half-shaft would turn in the drum like a lathe and all would free up .
Seemples !
Can't think of any other family car with alloy drums but I'm sure someone will put me right.
Ted
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Seemples !
LOL at its appropriateness !
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>>..as if they were the same sort of thing.>>
I only report facts, not suppositions...:-)
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the old tyre tubes from ladas used to be a weird concoction like made of whale blubber however you could blow them up as big as a bus on bored saturday afternoon when there was only the sweeping up to keep you busy
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My dads blew out on the M62 some where near Halifax. Was not a nice experience at all. Oh and the back box fell of on the M6 on the way to Blackpool. The windows would often fall into the bottom of the door and the fuses would blow every two weeks.
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was it coco the clowns old car then?
Edited by bell boy on 07/11/2009 at 12:48
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Just look it at. What shocked me is in my head I always remeber the car being scruffy but I never remembered it being as scruffy as it was in that car. It sums up just how much better cars are made now, it was ten years old when that picture was taken.
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It sums up just how much better cars are made now
Not really - with the greatest respect to all the dewy eyed memories of Ladas - they were made in Russia, the Soviet Russians lacked the capability to invest in proper R&D and they didn't care about the customer. European and Japanese cars of that era were light years ahead.
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Makes me wonder what was the most statistically or allegedly or I suppose even apocryphally most reliable everyday car of recent decades......
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Rattle, your Dad's Lada looks to be in what would have been considered quite good condition, were it to have lived in late 80s/early 90s Russia. In those days I travelled in far, far worse. Looks all right to me.
My least favourite cars in those days were old Volgas, which all seemed to have perforated exhausts, perforated floors, and no window winders on the back doors. In the rare event of stopping at a red light, the cabin would always fill with fumes.
When out on the streets thumbing lifts (very much the done thing, private drivers would gladly stop to pick up passengers for a small fee and would always be staggered at getting a foreigner step inside), the old thumb was much more enthusiastic when it spotted a Lada, very much the nicest cars to travel in compared to Moskvich, Volga, Zaporozhets etc.
Edited by Alanovich on 09/11/2009 at 10:23
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