Skip to content

Not as bad as you might think

Russia’s much anticipated new ‘sanction-proof’ Lada has been derided as a flashback to the USSR without any airbags, an anti-lock braking system, modern seat belts or satellite navigation.

The Lada Granta Classic 2022 was designed to use components only from Russia and its allies, but it also means it has no anti-emissions kit, with Russian car journalists reporting that the new car will only meet European pollution standards imposed in 1996.

Well, yeah, yeah but…..Ladas.

OK so they were an old design even when first made. Build quality was just terrible – we bought two Moskvitch vans fresh from the factory (Renault 4 based designs) and the first task was to strip and reassemble them. Right down to cracking open the gearboxes, really, everything.

If you had one that had been properly made – middle of the month perhaps, for those planned economy reasons. Early week wouldn’t have parts, late week of the month would be building too fast to meet plan – they were solid and worked and cheap. Nowt fancy at all but they could indeed deal with Russian weather which is a feat in itself.

There is a significant market in Russia for something like that. Build quality’s the thing tho’

59 thoughts on “Not as bad as you might think”

  1. And just like in Cuba, such cars can be kept running by every backstreet workshop, regardless of the dictats from Hodges the Greengrocer.

    Or you can have a modern ‘connected’ car that cannot be locked securely, catches fires when it wants, after locking the doors and windows, can only be started with Government permission, in ration, and is dependent upon special parts from China.

    There’s a real market for 1950s & 1960s technology.

  2. Without airbags, antilock brakes, GPS you tend to drive more slowly and carefully and carry a map.

    That’s how it used to be for years and somehow we all managed.

    ‘… designed to use components only from Russia and its allies…’

    Maybe Western Countries should order components from Russia & allies since there is a shortage here.

  3. The problem with all of this is that if you miss out on certain bits, everything starts to crumble.

    Cars are about all the parts and all the robots. You want a windscreen robot, I think there’s a couple of companies that make them. One is in Italy. And the people in that company have years, maybe decades of experience in how to create that robot and have matured to a point where it reliably fits windscreens all day long. They buy cameras, CPUs, various things to make that work. They probably perfected which rubber compound worked best with it.

    You’re not going to replace that overnight, or who knows what other features in car factories.

  4. About the only thing I’d be unhappy about would be no satellite navigation. Admittedly my car is too old to have it, but I’m sure I’d find it handy.

  5. A pal bought a Moskavitch back in the seventies. Kept it for a bit then sold it because he got sensitive about people laughing at it. Couple of years later, he had a change of heart. Bought it back off the bloke he’d sold it to. Still got it, as far as I know. Used it on his farm.
    It was an incredible beast. Basically, you just ran it & ignored it. Came with a copious tool kit, a jack would lift mountains & an electric engine heater you plugged in for winter morning starts. Useful for towing, standing on when painting the house, casual bull-dozing, shooting with a hole cut in the roof to stand up. Clean the interior by hosing it out.
    Sort of car they just don’t make any more. Landy’s S1,2 & 3. 2CVs, Beetles. Moggies. Cars you could keep running yourself. Basic & simple. I’m theoretically capable of completely rebuilding engines & gearboxes. I’ve done enough. Nothing I’ve owned in the past 2 or 3 decades would I even lift the bonnet. Wouldn’t know where to start. I had the petrol Chrysler chipped. But that was my garage in the UK, with a suite of electronics while stood by & watched.
    What would you want to be driving in Eastern Siberia in winter at 40 below? A Tesla?

  6. A scarcely relevant anecdote from the early 1980’s. An accountancy colleague sent his company car back to the garage because it rattled every time he went round corners. It turned out he’d left a screwdriver in the boot!

  7. Thanks jgh. Maybe one of these days. But I’ve just looked at my mobile phone and it evidently ran out of cash quite a while ago.

    Knowing me, I’ll just stuff around and never get around to actually doing anything.

  8. @Boganboy, A GPS that is a permanent fixture in a car will stop getting map upgrades when production of that model ceases or changes. I have a car that has a now useless inbuilt GPS because it doesn’t know about the changes to roads, so I know what a useless thing it is. With a TomTom you can get upgrades on the maps, either by paying or, if you have the right model, downloaded for free. A mobile phone has several options for GPS, and in my car I carry the mounting brackets for both a smartphone and a TomTom – the smartphone gives you traffic updates too. I like the TomTom because the screen is bigger.

    I can navigate across the UK or Europe using only my understanding of geography and road signs on major highways, and where I find GPS useful is in finding a particular street in an unfamiliar city under heavy traffic conditions where it is impossible to look at a map.

    In Italy, it is useful to remember that ‘All roads lead to Rome’ !

  9. I bought a new CZ 175 motorbike in the 70’s – made in what was then Czechoslovakia. Basically a Commie Bantam, and much the same applied to it – poor build quality, rubbish oils, greases, brake linings, etc. After a few years I stripped and completely rebuilt it, rectifying all those deficiencies. It was pretty much unbreakable, and those friends who royally took the piss at first, stopped doing so when their “Jap Crap” rusted to bits or wore out in a couple of years. And as per previous comments here, it had an excellent toolkit, and was dead simple to work on. Obviously wouldn’t be allowed today, what with being a “nasty” 2 stroke, and leaving a trail of blue smoke behind it.

    Any company offering a genuine “No Frills” car (like this Lada) would get my attention straight away, but again, they wouldn’t be allowed to. Skoda have long since gone upmarket, and even a lowly Dacia must have Airbags, ABS, ESP, etc.

  10. Ladas are a bit shit and about to get worse, but at least the average Russian will probably still be able to afford to buy and run a car by 2030. Not obvious that the same thing will be true for Western Europeans.

    I was reading a slightly smug article about leccy cars this morning, contrasting the cost of a full tank of petrol (£100!) and the electrical equivalent (£37). That’s true, but you’ll also struggle to buy an EV for less than £35,000, the supply chain is fucked and could easily get worse, and all costs are rising across the board.

    Forward, to the 1970’s!

  11. BiS: have you read the novel Kolymski Heights? Guy builds some Russian 4×4 thing out of the spares warehouse to escape Eastwards to Alaska.

    I find satnav is useful for the last mile. Not so much for the main journey. In UK and a lot of Europe it’s only a question of remembering a few motorway numbers to get you within 10 miles or so of your destination. In farther flung shitholes, can you trust the accuracy of the mapping, even if it exists?

  12. Steve: it might be £37 now but soon the Treasury will look seriously at how to tax the leccy or some other mechanism to get the revenue back. I’m sticking with diesel. A bit painful currently but things will settle down in time. Despite Volvo going big on electric trucks and some truly loony speculation on hydrogen, diesel is just not going away

  13. Satnavs are also very useful when you get lost. A map is of limited use when you don’t know where you are.

  14. “Sort of car they just don’t make any more. Landy’s S1,2 & 3.”

    The Defenders were good until the emissions crap caught up with them. Get one without any electronics and it as good as they got. Better than Series 3 for sure. Coil springs for one thing, and power steering. The early Discoveries are pretty bomb proof as well.

  15. Excavator Man,

    “@Boganboy, A GPS that is a permanent fixture in a car will stop getting map upgrades when production of that model ceases or changes. I have a car that has a now useless inbuilt GPS because it doesn’t know about the changes to roads, so I know what a useless thing it is. With a TomTom you can get upgrades on the maps, either by paying or, if you have the right model, downloaded for free. A mobile phone has several options for GPS, and in my car I carry the mounting brackets for both a smartphone and a TomTom – the smartphone gives you traffic updates too. I like the TomTom because the screen is bigger.”

    THIS

    Like the TV/VHS combi, unless there’s a good reason for something to be integrated, it shouldn’t be. Same as those daft iMacs. Just buy a Mac Mini and a monitor. If the screen goes wrong, throw it out and buy another one for £120. iMac repair will cost you 3-4 times that.

    My setup is a bluetooth radio with microphones paired with my smartphone. Cost me about £250 but well worth it. I can do GPS, change music, call a number, all with my voice. My phone dies? I throw it in the bin, buy a new one and pair it. Not sure if Tom Tom works with it, but I find the Google Maps navigation good enough.

  16. Don’t forget that, on that £100 tank of fuel, only about £20 is to cover the actual fuel.

    I’ve owned a couple of East German MZ motorbikes, they were well designed and well made. As others have already said, it was the low tech nature of the things that was useful, they were cheap and easy to keep on the road. Modern two stroke oils meant that they didn’t smoke either.

  17. TG – I expect the next episode of the Omnishambles to be widespread lorry driver strikes. Hauliers are being killed by diesel costs and drivers are getting angrier at their working conditions by the day.

    You’d like to think there will be a Come To Jesus moment in government, but all signs point to them quadrupling down on the things that created the crisis. Because there is an alternative to diesel: WEF-style poverty and scarcity.

  18. Steve,

    “I was reading a slightly smug article about leccy cars this morning, contrasting the cost of a full tank of petrol (£100!) and the electrical equivalent (£37). That’s true, but you’ll also struggle to buy an EV for less than £35,000, the supply chain is fucked and could easily get worse, and all costs are rising across the board.”

    My VW Polo, even at current prices is 26p/mile for fuel. To break even on a £35,000 car would require me to drive roughly 150,000 miles.

    Mad economy in general though, cars. I’m glad people buy new shiny cars for £30K as it means I get them when they’re under £5K. I’ve got better things to spend £25K on.

  19. Satnav updates is a bugbear. I have a 10 yr old Audi A4 and the satnav works but difficult to set destinations. Also they want £200 to update it! They can GTF!

    However on the Kia Sportage we recently bought for my wife the satnav was really easy to update, and for free. Just needed a Windows app from Kia and a few Gbyte download

  20. Bloke in North Dorset

    When I bought my Jag in 2005 I was advised to get the In built SatNav as it would help the car keep its value. By the time I sold it in 2017 nobody cared.

    When I bought my current van in 2015 I had SatNav but barely used it. It has a gadget on the dashboard that takes an iPad, a much better option. When I ordered my new van in January the salesman was surprised I didn’t want the inbuilt SatNav at £500 or so. I’m surprised anyone takes that option now with all the various gadgets you can easily fit to a vehicle.

  21. Our present car is our first with a satnav. For several years we didn’t try it and then, approaching an unfamiliar town, we turned it on. It wasn’t much cop: the town was holding a street fair and so we had to follow their signs not our navigator. Even then, though, it had one real merit. It told us where we were.

  22. You’d like to think there will be a Come To Jesus moment in government, but all signs point to them quadrupling down on the things that created the crisis.

    A sign of hope?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10908407/Weakened-Boris-Johnson-abandons-Carrie-inspired-green-push-favour-UK-self-sufficiency.html

    Of course, there’s lots more in the headline than in the article but the fact it’s being talked about can’t hurt. Boris ditched Covid restrictions in his last scrape and he’s in the shit again, so maybe he’ll dent the green leviathan in his desperate scramble to hold on.

  23. “it had one real merit. It told us where we were”

    This. Ditto first car with sat nav; and similarly, never use the sat nav part, but it does usefully improve on having to keep a map to hand for when somewhere far off and never previously visited. Ie, an electronic map – automatically on the right page/don’t need to use hands. Oh, and can rapidly zoom in and out on, that’s brilliant…

  24. “A GPS that is a permanent fixture in a car will stop getting map upgrades when production of that model ceases or changes”

    Personally, not convinced that’s such a biggie? My European maps were sometimes 10 or 20 years old. Never stopped me being in the right ball park.

  25. @Boganboy
    I asked VW about an update for the GPs on my Eos. Cheaper to buy a handful of Garmins. I have a couple of them. The trucker versions with the big screen. Orientated north! If you can’t read a map you’re too thick to drive a car. Let’s you see where the satnav’s actually taking you. Their route choices can be….interesting.
    I would never ever rely on a phone GPS. Although Windowsphone provided downloaded maps. Phone signal coverage is patchy even in the UK. France it’s mostly patches. Spain has mountains. By definition, you will always lose it where you need it most. Had a mate in the car poo-pooed the Garmin & insisted on his new Samsung. Until the mapping seized right out in the campo. So then it was trying to work out where the hell we were & where the hell was where we supposed to be going. About 50 km of driving to get us out the shit.

  26. “My European maps were sometimes 10 or 20 years old. Never stopped me being in the right ball park.”
    That’s how you end up sailing up a one way street the wrong way Or being unable to get out of a town because all the roads it’s telling you to use are No Entry. Alhaurin El Grande at about 2:00AM one rainy winter’s night. For over an hour. Round & round & round

  27. I think the difference with out of date GPS / maps these days is that expectations have changed. Previously I would research an unfamiliar route and leave extra time for the last mile to find the exact destination. But with Google maps / Waze beong so good these days, the expectation is a smooth, fairly stress free journey door to door.

  28. Harry Haddock's Ghost

    Lots of rose tinted nonsense about Ladas in this thread.

    Worth remembering that there was never a time that a nearly new second hand proper car made more sense than a new Lada, in terms of practicality, value, resale value, safety, reliability or not looking like a socialist cunt from Yorkshire.

    Suspect the same here, tbh.

  29. BiS

    “For over an hour.”

    Yep, done all that and lots more. 🙂 But not convinced that the age of the map was always the problem in some parts of bongo.

    BiK

    Yes, exactly. I would previously try to commit the broad outline I was arriving at to memory beforehand. Then, if one way systems/new layouts or whatever shimmied me off course, basic sense of direction usually got me there, “mostly” without too much grief… Less prep needed now with the electronic map always in view.

  30. @PF: I know someone with a wonderful sense of direction yet she doesn’t know left from right. But she knows that XYZ is “over there” and can point to it.

  31. BlokeOnM4: My 15-year-old Corsa cost about 25p per mile *all* *in*. Tax, MOT, cost of purchase, insurance, repairs, oil, fuel, everything.

  32. PJF – He needs to do something to save his own skin. It’s not just European federasts out to get him now, actual Tories are also rightly unhappy at his government.

    I’m not overly hopeful because we need a detail-driven iconoclast like Mrs Thatcher and he’s more of a waffly fanny-abouter like Ted Heath, but all of the other guys seem worse so…

    BoM4 – I actually like electric cars, they won me over with the pleasant driving experience, generous specs and amusing science fiction noise when they go ZHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. But yarp, they’re not going to save people money in normal use cases, and were never going to be feasible as a mass market proposition without lots of lovely relatively cheap electricity. And even then, if I lived in an urban bughive I’d be concerned about hoodies stealing my charging cable.

  33. I’d certainly echo the sentiments of buying second hand. I think I could probably afford to buy anything I want, new. Unless I started getting very silly. But. 10 y/o Eos with 120k (km) on the clock. Wanted 4 seater drop-top with metal roof, auto. So a limited choice of models to choose from. Couldn’t find the right Sebring. Wouldn’t be seen dead in a Merc or BMW. Or paying for one. 8 y/o Kangoo with 100k on it Shopping, shifting shit, general abuse. The pair €16k, bought 2 years ago from the same seller. Apart from a new timing belt for the Eos, as a precaution when I first got it, the only outlays have been servicing & fuel. Cars at that mileage, these days, are virtually new. As long as they have a service record. Probably good for another hundred & fifty. Both were made before manufacturers went batshit crazy with touch screens, card locks & all the rest of it. I don’t know anyone hasn’t had some problem with v recent cars. Usually software. The Kangoo’s virtually neolithic. So for the price of a small hatchback I run a fleet. And I always have a car that works & does what I need. If something went seriously wrong with one of them, I’d throw it away & buy another. At that price, so what?

  34. Bloke in North Dorset

    BiS,

    I don’t know if Spain has the equivalent but I pay £14 a year for access to all the OS maps. I’ve download all the 50k res ones and download the detailed maps for any area I’m visiting.

    This morning I was in a lovely part of the Northumberland national park without coverage and had no problems navigating

  35. Sat nav is nice on trips in remote areas, even if there is usually only one road to follow, know where you are and when you are going to get somewhere, also gives you a sense of the shape of the road ahead. Having driven at -40 on snow packed ‘highway’ in the dark last year knowing when the twisty bits are coming up in advance doesn’t hurt.
    Mine also does breadcrumbs when on unmarked forestry roads which can make backtracking to the main road easier when you take a side trip

  36. @BiND
    I’ve got a GPS dongle plugs in the laptop. The ware will handle any maps you like. Works with the entirety of the satellite constellations, so sometimes you can be pulling signals from 8 or 9. If one wants to go to the trouble of calibration you can get the accuracy down to inches. Then it depends how good the mapping was.
    Depends on what you’re using mapping for. There’s a whole world of stuff you can download from the web. Some very specialised. Air & sea navigation. People produce maps for their own particular purposes.

  37. @BiND
    I think Spain was last actually surveyed by the Brits years ago. Spanish maps are notoriously inaccurate. Last time I was in Motril the satnav wanted me to turn right straight through the front of an apartment block. Block was built in the 70’s It reckons there’s a route out of town on the inland side. For goats, maybe. It goes straight across a field. The maps of the town I’m in show a road I know doesn’t exist. They built a railway line across it in the 80’s. It’s just a stub at each end.
    French are much better, but a friend’s house is 200 metres from where maps say it is. You can see the road & house on sat imagery but the map overlay doesn’t agree with the image. Satnavs work on the mapping so they get mighty confused when you near his house & keep going to “recalculating”. I suppose it may be accurate at the cadestrale level. Maybe they never tied one to t’other.

  38. I just realised! That’s why his road is the only one in the area Streetview’s never been down. They don’t know it exists. Wonder if they tried to drive across the field….?

  39. I recommend travelling in countries where houses can have both house numbers & plot numbers on the front. So can be both 44 & 63, depending on how many they built on a plot. Or my address in France. Rue de B… 106. That’s 106 metres from the start of the road. Next door was 140

  40. Or my friend’s house in France. Address: Maison V… B…, Caylus, (Dept 82) No street name. There isn’t one. There are two houses in Caylus with the same name.

  41. Yes BiS. I happen to live in 51 Arrol St. The house next to me is on the corner and is 51 Orwell St.

    I’ve always assumed the blokes were killing themselves laughing when they numbered them.

  42. @bis

    Google Maps on Android also lets you download the maps.

    Having said that, you may not want to tell the nice Mr Google exactly where you were at every moment of your trip, so there are privacy reasons to prefer an old-fashioned TomTom or Garmin.

  43. @Anon
    Thanx. Didn’t realise you could do that on Android. But. Downloading just half of Andalucia is 250Mb. I travel all over Spain. All over Europe for that matter. Which is what the satnav has got on it. Think I’ll stick with that rather than ponce around with a phone.

  44. Anon.

    When traveling in Europe I downloaded the local Google maps. That way being out of coverage never mattered.

    But you don’t need your location on to use them, unless you get lost. So Google mostly had no idea where I was.

  45. Man in street:

    I’d rather have a crappy cheap car than no car

    My first car was a crappy cheap old Skoda 120 (rear engine). Did it’s job, better than walking/bus. Also, it’s appalling vauge handling made me a better driver

  46. I just looked at the file sizes for Windows Phone mapping compared with Google. I’ve a strong suspicion one’s downloading all that fucking advertising obscures the maps if you inadvertantly touch something

  47. And incidentally, I notice the Linux for Phone now supports the phones I’m currently using. Time to migrate methinks & shake loose of the claws of the appalling Android. If I never again saw the word Google it’d be too soon.

  48. O/T but I just installed a download of Mint Light on a netbook was stumbling & bumbling around on XP. I’ve now a snappy little machine, does everything I need. Takes a handful of H/D space rather than half of it. I’m now looking at doing the same with the 14 inch W7 kit. And saving myself about 500 quid. W10/11 bloat is not now compulsory.

  49. “So Google mostly had no idea where I was.”
    Of course it knew where you were. The apps you have & have granted location permission tell it. And they don’t function unless you do.

  50. “without any airbags, an anti-lock braking system, modern seat belts or satellite navigation”

    Ah, sounds remarkably like my Caterham. No airbags, no power steering, no anti lock brakes, spartan dashboard, simple 6 point harness. Car without driver weighs around 550kg. The best drive you’ll ever get!

    Caterham had record sales last year, wait time for a factory built one is 9 months. Simpler does appeal to some.

  51. “I’ve owned a couple of East German MZ motorbikes”

    Worth remembering that East German engineer/rider Ernst Degner defected to the West and subsequently gave Suzuki the knowledge he had gained while working under MZ’s team manager, Walter Kaden.

  52. “I’ve owned a couple of East German MZ motorbikes”

    First bike I bought & road, when 14, was a CZ175 Trail – cheap s/h

    Great bike to learn on, petrol tank and rest of panels made out of surplus armour. Didn’t dent no matter how many times I crashed/fell-off. Mechanically simple too

    Sold 3 years later for more than I’d paid

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *