There’s a neighbourhood in Helsinki called Viiskulma, which refers to the fact five streets meet there. I had a couple minutes to stroll around there, and this red Lada immediately drew me close.
It’s in almost absolutely perfect condition, historic-registered, and quite certainly in better shape when it was new. The 2103 body was a little bit fancier than the initially unveiled 2101 car (2102 being the wagon version of the former), and the quad headlights reflect that among other changes.
It’s quite likely that the VAZ here has been imported from Estonia in recent years, as it’s badged as a Zhiguli, and not a “Lada 1500” or anything like that. The Cyrillic badge confused a friend of mine, who sent me a photo later with a caption: “Look what I found for you, a good old Moskvich!”
Helsinki Weekend Edition: Lada VAZ-2103 "Zhiguli"
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Very nice to find one of them in good condition. Do they have any value like this in Finland or is it a true enthusiast’s car?
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You can buy one like this for few grand. If you see a round lamp Lada in this condition you can be almost sure that it’s owned by some sort of car enthusiast.
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Where do you go, online, to check out the Finnish car market?
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Nettiauto.com. And yeah, that will eat all your free time. Sorry.
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It’s amazing how many rolling cars that are not yet entirely disintegrated are offered for seriously little money…
Sidepiped 350€ Volvo 360
http://image.nettiauto.com/extra/carimg/00/07/30/57/03/volvo-360-7305703_jt_7b8a127520d85c5d.jpg
500€ 242
http://image.nettiauto.com/extra/carimg/00/07/36/66/21/volvo-240-7366621_jt_2bf3ce89aed3172d.jpg
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Fantastic looking, far better than factory finish. I love watching old, foreign action movies where they drive the wheels off of various FIAT licensed sedans like this.
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Seems that factory built couple of 2013 wagons (3 says internet). But it is really easy to replicate as Lada is a Lego car and everything fits to every RWD model they made, dashboard from 2005 to 1969 Lada, yeah why not, and vice versa too. Here’s on replica:
http://carmotorcycles.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wpid-replika-opytnogo-universala-na-baze-vaz-2103-vypolnena-na-baze-vaz-2102_i_1.jpg-
Any idea why they only made three “luxury” wagons? One thing I really like about Soviet cars is the bad-road-minded riding height. True of this fine Volga, too:
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No idea. In the USSR reason could have been that they didn’t have enough chromed bits available and didn’t bother to incr. production of these or something like that. All domestic market Lada (i.e. VAZ 21xx) cars were anyway kinda randomly built, car could have had 1300 (+- 200) cc engine, people who had waited 15 years to get their car were happy with anything and didn’t have much say on what they got on the day of delivery, anyways.
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There were chrome-grille models sold on the UK market as well. I don’t recall if they made them after the restyle in about 1983/4 or so, but those were likely models retrofitted with them as part of the ‘rectification’ (as the UK importer referred to it) process that all cars went through on arrival.
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