Putin Loves His (Customized) Lada

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Russian President Vladimir Putin first showed off his badass camo Lada Niva early last year, in an attempt to boost the fortunes of the floundering state-supported Russian automaker AvtoVAZ. What Putin didn’t reveal until just now is that his Niva isn’t exactly stock.”I won’t hide it [anymore?] , the car I bought has an Opel engine,” he tells the WaPo. “It turns out that it’s more powerful.” Now wonder Russian parliamentarians are starting to advocate dumping AvtoVAZ on Renault, which in turn is drawing a familiar homerism from local pols in Russia’s Detroit, Tolyatti. In other car-salesman-in-chief developments today, Barack Obama revealed that he believes GM is a world-class automaker because his Cadillac is so badass.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Nick Nick on Jan 25, 2010

    psarhjinian, he has a T82 as a back up vehicle, so he should be okay.

  • Dave7 Dave7 on Jan 25, 2010

    A Niva is a man's man car - makes a Jeep look like a nice commuter car - I want one. Came across the ultra rare pickup version a while back. http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/2653029132/

  • Venator Venator on Jan 25, 2010

    Herr Niedermeyer, the city where Ladas are built is called Togliatti. Named after an Italian Communist leader, when the Russians transscibed the name into the Cyrillic alphabet, they used the phonetic spelling. Therefore while the Russians spell it as Tolyatti in the Cyrillic alphabet, the Latin spelling still is Togliatti. As for the Niva, it is quite capable off road, unibody notwithstanding.

  • Garak Garak on Jan 26, 2010

    Niva was brought back to the showrooms here in Finland. Bargain-basement price, no safety features whatsoever, bad fuel economy (20-28mpg), poor performance, questionable reliability - and incredible off-road performance. The most surprising bit is the engine: the ancient 1960s lump is capable of Euro-4 emissions. I wish they'd put an Opel engine under the hood here also, preferably a Diesel. And air bags. And ABS brakes. And... I guess I'll have to buy a Suzuki Jimny instead.

    • Geggamoya Geggamoya on Jan 27, 2010

      I love it how they list "glovebox" as a feature worth mentioning. 0-100kph in 19 seconds is pretty pathetic, as is the top speed of 137kph, but it can take 58% inclines and it's small enough to go around pretty much anything it cant go over.. If i had a crapload of money a Niva would definately be on my list of fun vehicles to own.

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