(first posted 10/14/2013) Historically Lada made a reasonably good business selling a variety of rear wheel drive saloons and wagons based on beefed up Fiat designs. By the 1980s these rugged but rear wheel drive cars were looking seriously dated in a predominately front wheel drive market. The development of a more modern front drive hatchback actually dates back to the 1970s, but took until 1984 (and later in many markets) for it to appear. A storied German make even helped out in the development of the engine.
Creative Commons photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/21069276@N03/4783588418/
The Lada Classic term covers a whole range of cars and keeping track of names and variations can be very confusing due to each market doing its own thing. Roughly speaking the original VAZ-2101 Lada saloon was introduced in 1970. The VAZ-2101 was a collaboration with Fiat based off the 124 but re-engineered to be cope better with the conditions of Eastern Bloc nations.
It was replaced in the western world market by 1981 with the more widely recognized and boxy looking VAZ-2105 (4dr saloon), VAZ-2104 (wagon) and VAZ-2107 (deluxe) which was more commonly known as Riva (UK), Nova (Europe), 1500 (Canada) or Signet (1500) as well as a variety of names on the home market. Mechanically they are almost identical to their predecessor only gaining refinements like slightly larger engine, timing belt and eventually fuel injection.
These were quite successfully sold to people who either wanted a new car with a warranty for the lowest possible price or aspired to drive a Volvo 240 series but couldn’t quite swing the purchase price. In Canada (and I suspect Europe as well) starting in the mid 1980s the Koreans, especially the Hyundai Pony and Excel, were stealing a large part of this market while the East European Skodas and Ladas started to decline in popularity.
The answer to declining sales was seen as a more modern front wheel drive hatchback in the Volkswagen Golf mold. And like the Golf with the Beetle, the Samara didn’t replace the older, dated car, but was sold along side it. While the Niva had been a mostly in house development it still used Fiat derived engines and gearboxes so the Samara became the first model developed completely independently from Fiat. For body styles Canada got both the three and five door hatchbacks. The four door saloon was available as well and was often called the Sagona depending on the year and trim.
A Samara convertible was also sold in small numbers for a handful of years and was likely converted after leaving the factory. Several body kits were offered as dealer installed options and differed depending on the market. The home market offered a neat Dodge Rampage style truck as well but they sadly didn’t make the trip to Canada.
The car’s molded plastic “grill” was a bit of a controversial feature when introduced. Often derided as cheap and ugly importers often swapped it out for a more conventional grill. Also note the seamless conversion from European to North American style license plate mounts.
The Samara might be most famous for its engine. It’s an overhead cam four cylinder engine available in a variety of different displacements depending on the market. Canada got the 1.3 and 1.5L engines with 65 and 75hp respectively while a 1.1L version could be had in other markets. A two barrel carburetor was the initial fuel system with a GM-sourced throttle body injection system used later. Doesn’t sound all that special does it? Well in truth it isn’t, but it was developed with help from Porsche and some Samara even had little badges under the hood stating as well. The home market even offered a rotary engine rated at 140hp that was almost exclusively used by law enforcement as a pursuit vehicle.
Porsche’s involvement didn’t extend beyond the engine so the Samara’s handling is best described as modest. Chassis wise the Samara was pretty standard for the class with struts up front and a beam axle on coil springs in the rear. Front discs and rear drums handled the braking and the whole car rode on 13″ rims. Those rims were one of the only carry overs from the old car and still retained the Fiat 4x98mm bolt pattern. Steering was handled by rack and pinion that will nicely weighted didn’t offer a lot of feedback.
The Samara even had some motorsport involvement mostly in rally form. Lada Canada built a factory backed rally in 1993 from this 1991 fuel injected Samara. It remains active to this day.
This interior was rather filthy but more or less intact which leads me to believe that it was stored for a long period before finally scrapped. While the mechanical bits tended to be reasonably solid, the Samara’s low price point was most evident inside. The overall look is reasonable enough for the era but some of the plastics used were of extremely low quality. I know on my own Niva ownership experience that some of the interior panel moldings were made from shockingly thin and brittle plastics.
Coming around the back I think we can see what caused the demise of this particular Samara in the form of some damage to the rear hatch. While Samaras were a mainstay of Canadian scrapyards fifteen years ago they show up only very occasionally now and the owner probably felt it wasn’t worth sourcing a replacement hatch. Samara sales came to a halt in 1997 for the Canadian market when VAZ’s looming bankruptcy caused supply issues obtaining the GM sourced fuel injection units. The Niva lasted an additional year because Lada pulled out of the Canadian market for good.
A very interesting car that is very exotic to me in the U.S. The body actually looks quite good on this car, and it is interesting that the owner didn’t consider it worth a hatch-ectomy. However, I suppose with an old cheap car there were probably several other issues.
Porsche connection aside, this car has a very generic 80s hatchback look to it. Did these sell in that same price range as the Hyundai or the Yugo?
After Bathurst legend Peter Brock broke up with General Motors Holden over the polariser affair, he was involved in the importation of the Lada Samara to Australia. There was even a special version with Brock badging.
The Lada Samara cost around 10,000 AUD or so in 1988.
One of the cheapest cars for sale in Australia at the time.
The FSM Nikki cost around 8,000 in 1989.
A Hyundai Excel started at around 11,500 AUD at the time.
From memory the involvement was checking over the cars as they arrived from the docks and repairing manufacturing faults, it may have even been replacing the entire wiring loom. They also had to re-align the diffs and transfer case on the Niva 4x4s.
I believe that the importers actually paid for the vehicles with wheat (as opposed to hard currency) at times.
Some Nivas were scrapped new because of driveline vibration that could not be dialled out there was a special tool used to set up the centre diff and the holes in the floor were slotted to suit each individual car, I know someone who worked at Continental motors in Hobart prepping Ladas for sale, they were crap and the Samara the worst of the lot water pumps are biodegradable among other less important issues
Yes, these were paid for with wheat and effectively remanufactured on arrival here- the ignition system in particular was poor and so replaced. A friend looked at buying one new, but took one look at the interior and said “Wow, now I understand that plastic really comes from dead dinosaurs!”
I read about this car and it was very dated against the mostly JAPANESE opposition of the day.for not much more than one of these you could have got a KE LASER,N13 Pulsar and even front drive corollas were better buys than this.base model be but they all 1600cc engines and build quality was way better given they might be built in Australia but were of the same quality as the cars they were based on in their home market plus they came with an automatic.you had a new barina from 1989 to contend with plus the option of a 1.3 in the daihatsu charade which made the russian car look old next to any of it’s competition.
Although there are keys in the ignition, the usual cause of tailgate damage like this in a self-serve junkyard is someone prying open the hatch to get something of value inside.
I think that hatch damage looks as though it was inflicted with a fork lift.
These were never as popular as the RWD models in the UK and I’m sure they stopped importing Ladas due to poor sales a few years later.You get what you pay for with these Iron Curtain cars,if you can’t fix it yourself it’s worthless as a repair could easy cost more than the car’s value.I had 6 years with an FSO 125p,the only problems being a blown head gasket and a broken clutch slave cylinder caused when I drove over a piece of wood.
Nice writeup! I owned a Niva for a time once too, so I have an irrational soft spot for all things Lada. But what always struck me as odd about the Samara was that it seemed to ride much higher than other cars. Other than that, I’d say this was a valiant effort from the Lada folks; back when these came out, they would pretty much blend in, looking not nearly as hopelessly outdated as all the other offerings from the Eastern Bloc. In the first decade of production, that is.
If I recall correctly, these were also built under license by Valmet of Finland for a time and sold as the “Samara Baltic”; supposedly, the build quality of those wasn’t all that bad.
If that’s true, there is the second Porsche connection, seeing as how Valmet built Boxster’s as well to augment the Stuttgart production…
That rear suspension was not a beam axle, it was a setup like the VW Golf and the Opel Kadett had at the time. Maybe it is a language thing but in any case. I think that convertible was built in Finland but I could be wrong. The rear axle pictured has a non standard anti-roll bar.
That’s typically called a “twist-beam” or “torsion beam”, and I suspect that’s what David meant to say.
Great post. It beats the 1981 Mercury Zephyr Z-7 that I saw in the junk yard today(Pics later or in a future CC post)
In Canuckistan, these things sold for $5800 in 1987, undercutting pretty much everything by $1000. Many were bought by GMOTE (Goddess Mother of The Earth) types denouncing Capitalism, or total skinflints. In Victoria, a legendary used car total scumbag got the franchise. He sold the cars with five year warranties, but the factory warranty was only a year. When the cars came back, Mr T simply walked away. There was no access to parts or service and the cars ended up scrapped in no time.
My Dad’s late cousin bought a Samara new in 1988 to allow his treasured Triumph 2500TC to retire from daily driver duties and become a weekend cruiser. The Samara was a very pretty baby-blue colour, but that was where the good stuff ended. I remember being horrified that he’d buy a Lada (we all knew New Zealand only got them because that was how Russia paid for our dairy produce). I was even more horrified when I saw inside it. For a 1988 car, the plastic trim was of abysmal quality. The cutouts for the heat/vent levers were incredibly jagged and looked like they’d been made with a rusty handsaw that was missing some teeth. I assume Dad’s cousin didn’t like the Samara much, as it was traded on a new Hyundai Excel within a few months.
Too bad these weren’t sold in the US…..:)
Really Paul you should count yourselves lucky not to have got them, mind you I’d never here yous complain about British reliability anymore Ladas made American cars look great.
More hyperbole from Bryce, but I expect that now!
In Australia, they were first launched in 1989 as the Samara (3-dr) and I believe the Cevaro (5-dr) but in the early/mid 90s, I’m fairly sure the 3-dr was ditched and the 5-dr was renamed Volante and the sedan was launched under the Sable nameplate.
Growing up, I don’t recall ever seeing any and they certainly wouldn’t have stuck around by the time I got older. Maybe I saw a Samara a couple of years ago but it was more than likely just a dream! We never got the Riva/Signet, and I doubt it would’ve been successful here.
but were long gone by the late nineties.what did you expect.the korean onslaught with the festiva,daewoo 1.5i/cielo and later the lanos plus hyundai with it’s excel later known as the accent plus the malaysian proton was going to happen anyway.the proton was based on a lancer anyway for cheaper and the hatch was unique given mitsubishi for their own lancer hatchbacks were still selling a design that dated back to 1989.these days daewoo is no more but we have kia and hyundai and holden offering cars in this price bracket packed stuff full of features a lada buyer would only have dreamed about back in the day.
There was actually a special model by Peter Brock, it wasnt any better than the others but he did try.
The old box shaped Fiat models were quite good cars more reliable than the Fiats they were based on Samaras on the other hand were warranty problems from new and faded from the roads qyite rapidly where I currently live was Ladas NZ entry port a lot of cars had to be towed off the ships and were never actually registered for the road they were wrecked for parts from new, a mate of mine drove a transported carting them those unable to be started simply left the port by tow truck, there is still an active Lada dealer in Napier Gee Motors is still open for business.
Send us the ones with the rotary engine ! A poor man’s RX7, or GTI ? Or, more than likely, a poor man’s hot rod Yugo.
It looks…um, interesting – for an el cheapo car. From the sales brochure, it looks a bit like the period Mitsu Mirage/Dodge Colt. And, I admit back in the day, I’d have liked to have been able to afford a Colt Turbo.
I had one of these in 2003 after my Allegro blew its autobox on a trip to Scotland. (Note to self- 1.3 engine plus gearbox sharing oil NOT meant for 90mph cruising.)
£250 later, and I had a reasonably tidy one owner Samara, with strange rust in the A pillar and inside of the boot where the strut towers were welded to the bodyshell. The ‘one owner from new’ was a spitting image of Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances. It was a 5 door 1.5 engine and was quite fast and felt very robust, meaning heavy. However, the gearshift was recalcitrant and the seats seemed purposely designed to be uncomfortable with no thigh support and an unpadded steel bar at the small of my back.
For all of that, it was a good highway car, excellent in the snow, and had that ‘yep it’ll get me home’ feel even if bits are falling off’ that only Eastern European cars can have. The only problems were a fuel pump, ignition module, and water pump. I didn’t pay more than £7 for any of those bits and fitted them myself in a maximum of 10 minutes with the toolkit in the boot. Well, not the waterpump- that was a bit of a fiddle, but no worse than any other FWD car.
Later, I owned three RWD Ladas- the old Fiat ones. These were what gave Lada their reputation. David is so right that the Samara was cheaply built from the worst quality of materials, as were all later ladas. Worse, they lacked the truck-like overbuiltness of the Rivas. Hence, most Lada buyers looked at them and got another Riva, as they knew it would be exactly like their previous one.
The final nail in the Samara’s coffin was the Skoda Favorit, a FWD car that was as reliable and almost as competent to anything else from western Europe, and was what showed VW which Comecon company had the quality and engineering integrity to be worth investing in. In every way, the Samara was inferior to the Skoda.
Lastly, the Samara’s era was tied to one of the most difficult periods in Lada’s history. Early examples still had development bugs to work out, and after 1990, Lada was held to ransom by Boris Berezhovsky, a mafia-like monopolist who ran Lada into the ground. In addition to pilfering the factory for spares for his dealer network, he forced (literally at gunpoint) Lada to give him cars without payment, and then he paid 6-12 months later. This was devastating to Lada, as hyperinflation meant that they were literally giving him the cars. Workers weren’t paid, tooling went AWOL and those who argued were shot on the shop floor. This was the nadir for Lada’s quality, which never was great, but until the late 80s, was not really much worse than BL or Citroen.
I’d never have another Samara, or any other FWD Lada, but a Niva? Yep. After 2010, they finally redesigned the driveline to eliminate the vibration- after only 33 years.
I always felt bad for the Lada sales folks at the Vancouver Auto Show. That would haven been a thankless job – their customer base would be quite small, and all the enthusiasts at the show would have had a giggle or two as they walked by.
These cars are still very common in Hungaristan, as they are cheap, rugged, and parts are still plentiful. I remember my grandmother’s neighbour owning a white 3-door one after having owned a blue Dacia 1310. The Samara was more modern, so it was probably a step-up for him.
I don’t get the complaints about the front grille, the early versions look so much better than the later ones. The smoother grille just makes them look too generic, after all the shape is very simplistic.
Also, there is a similar looking car, called the ZAZ Tavria. Not too many of them prevailed around here, as their quality was appalling. An American friend of mine once called it the “retarded little sister of the VW Golf” and he wasn’t too far away from the truth. A Russian car programme conducted a crash test on domestic cars and it scored even worse than the Lada 2107. The hood came off on impact and sliced into the head of the dummy, that’s how bad it was.
Never thought I will actually contribute to this community with my own experience, but now having a chance to do it I can share on the topic.
I own one original Samara made back in the times of USSR (1990 actually), export version with 1.5L engine. It’s cheap and easy to fix, lightweight and easy to drive and do about 6L/100km in my carburator version. Attached a photo made in 2012.
Also the new upgraded version Samara-2 is still in production and sell reasonably well. Current price about 9500usd:
http://www.lada.ru/cgi-bin/models.pl?model_id=4459&branch=tth
And looks like only 5-door hatchback available, 3-dr and sedan must have been discontinued recently as I wasn’t aware of this upon checking their website.
Ps: English is my second language, sorry if I messed it up badly.
cra: your English was great! I didn’t know the Samara was still in production – thank you for the link to the website. 🙂
+1. Interesting to know that the Samara is still in production. I’ve always been fascinated by Russian cars.
I think they will drop last Samara 5-dr from production right from beginning of 2014, as the price was steadily going up for many years (7500 to 9500 in just 4 years) and now in a direct competition with a cheapest models of foreign brands with local production plants.
As the last mass-production car of soviet heritage it will mark the end of the whole era in local automobile industry and it’s going on completely unnoticed. The actual last will be Lada 4×4 Niva in slightly restyled and upgraded version, as long as it’s the cheapest offroad-capable vehicle on the market it will have small niche of loyal customers.
http://lada.ru/cgi-bin/car_line.pl?modelid=5086
Lada now have major alliance with Renault and currently building cheapest Renault Logan and Lada Largus on the same line on their factories, which are basically the same car in sedan and estate versions respectively. They still have five other models of their own and hold first market position as brand with total 500k+ sales, but lose 5-10% a year to other brands.
Incredible but we still have a Lada dealer in business no new cars for many years but surely a dealer outside Russia must be a rarity
Have had a 1989 Samara hatch since 2006 doing approx 15000km per annum, have always said if it ever dies will get rid of it, however keeps on going. Did change over to single barrelled ford escort carb, mileage went up to 14.5 km /litre. Secret to making water pump last is not to overtighten timing belt, plus use of anti freeze, use an all metal water pump not the one with plastic impeller. Keep an eye on valve clearances, haven,t adjusted mine in 7 years, inlet clearance sitting on .004 thou at present. After 7 years Clutch thrust bearing collapsed. Replacement clutch kit $185 Au $, replaced rubber boot on steering rack while engine was out, cleaned rack, regreased. New carby kit produced additional 1km /litre and helps with stable idle, flexible gasket sealant at base of carb helps with stable idle and stable top end power. Heater u/s however no need for as Au is warm. Would want a heater and demist if going near snow. One noise I found hard to find turned out to be the long alternator bolt that alternator pivots on, a tighten up will fix this. Once bugs are ironed out just a matter of keeping an eye on things. I use a manual togle switch at the end of a choke cable for thermo fan if stuck in traffic, electric relays seemed to burn out for some reason. Have used a ford capri/mazda 323 radiator which came up on ebay, will fit in although on a slant, has a radiator cap and dispenses with original header tank. New Samara radiators available on ebay from the U.K. last time I looked.
Car seems to be fairly reliable once bugs are Ironed out and it’s ways are understood. G.
In Canada, there were many Lada Samara 5-door hatchbacks around, for a short while. That seemed to be the most popular body style.
It kinda looks like a 1st gen 1986-89 Hyundai Excel hatchback, except not as dorky.
Although, it does look spartan as heck in hatchback coupe configuration.
You should’ve posted more pics of the 4 door sedan with available rear spoiler… It looks pretty slick for a later 80’s-90’s offering… Even though the reliability of these cars must’ve been a nightmare.
Okay, really… A Lada limo?
My buddy Jurai had one back in the mid-1990s that we buzzed around in former DDR, in the Harz mountains. His Czech parents bought it for him for college and he was a bit embarrassed by it. As an Ami, I didn’t have any prejudices against it and was just glad to get out of the public transportation route during the winter months. It got cold up in the mountains around Wienegerode and Broken, but the skiing was superb. That is also where I had opportunities to buzz around in old Trabis and other not-imported-to-the-US European brands.
It was a cheap car, but it wasn’t a Yugo. Jurai fixed whatever it needed. Not a fancy German vehicle, and I guess we did get looks from snobs for driving around in it, but it was a new experience.
Fine little car, all around.
Did Porsche really construct this engine? Now that I see this powertrain, it seems more like an old Ford Endura 1.3 to me.
Apparently the had hand in the design but likely not the production.
At the time when I lived in DNR (Donbass region), I’ve taught myself to drive on my friend’s Lada Samara VAZ-2108. His was a 1986 model, carburated, 1,300 cc . Pretty spartan, but at 16 I was able to fix most things, including a clutch replacement I just needed help to pull the transmission out, as it was heavy. If you periodically replace bushings and adjust a shifter properly, no issues. I could fix a flat tire in 15 minutes, including taken it off, changing a tube and mount it back on. He always carried 2-3 spare tubes, as roads were pretty rough.
A friend of mine had one of these in a beige color that was one of the more popular colors on this market. His dad was the Service Manager at the dealers that brought them in. I do remember the rather low rent interior, but I wasn’t aware it came in convertible form, and your mention of Porsche helping out with the engine brought back memories of the early VW-era Seats that carried “Engine System Porsche” stickers on the rear window.
For a time, Ladas were locally assembled in Angola from KD kits. Not sure if Angolan production included this model though. The preferred Lada was the Niva 4wd. Lada’s were generally liked for their ground clearance due to roads being so deteriorated by a long civil war. The simplicity of most Ladas was an advantage over more sophisticated cars. Angola is about the same size Texas and California combined. This and the civil war meant vast areas had few repair shops and no replacement parts network. Russian trade practices offered development aid that included putting Lada assembly plants in areas where a western for profit manufacturer couldn’t make the economics work. Some of the local cars seemed much better put together than the Russian imports. Of course the basic parts quality would still be the same. I drove a few Ladas while living in Angola. Crude yes. But well suited to certain areas and certain times.
AFAIK,actually only two Lada models are continued on domestic platform, the Granta (derived from Kalina, 110 and Priora) and the classical Niva (rebadged as Lada 4×4, because Niva nameplate went to Chevy Niva some years ago).
Other Lada models share Renault / Nissan platforms, and all three brands are assembled side by side. Actually the most succesful one is Lada Vesta, offered in sedan and SW forms, both available with Cross package and CNG conversion.
You’re not right. XRay is based on B0 (Global Access) platform. Actually it’s improved Dacia/Renault Sandero Stepway but Vesta is 100% Lada. New platform developed in Togliatti. Much better actually than B0. Unfortunately they still got quality issues. Not all Vestas ride the same. Some cars are brilliant others have vere modest handling.
I ran Ladas both Niva and Samara variants for 35 years in difficult rural environments. I knew them for what they were, what their strengths and deficiencies were. I found the Niva excellent in the bush and the Samara a good car for country use even if the trim could have been improved. It was strong, took rough roads, cruised long distances at 120k’s with good economy. Engines lasted as well as a Corolla and could run up 500,000 k’s but suffered from carbon build up. Some 10,000 Ladas were sold in Australia but the import operation was badly mishandled when grain trader Louis Dreyfus bought the agency. The Samara introduction ran into trouble when Peter Brock was employed to ADR and pre deliver the cars but he had an undisclosed tax debt which made his business fold. So Dreyfus who knew nothing about cars was suddenly running Brock’s workshop with a shipment of cars that didn’t meet ADRs and had not been pre assessed. You only get one chance with an import agency. By 1990 the Cevaro was right but the damage had been done,