It has turned 50, and has had some hard times along the road—but, as the Lada enters its second half century, it still has its devoted admirers says Forbes, A classic EV conversion!
Forbes continues with Lada Ownership: The Soviet Driver's Dream
"The Lada first took to the road in 1970, and soon became an object of great desire. But the planned economy of the Soviet era was not geared to meeting consumer demand. An ordinary person could wait years to get the car of their dreams.
Once they did, they treasured it. If cars themselves were in short supply, so were spare parts—and, as in many other parts of the world, theft of anything that could be removed from a parked vehicle was a risk.
In the Soviet Union, that included the rubber blades on windshield wipers. They were usually kept inside the car, and only fitted when needed. One of this writer's memories of the late Soviet period is seeing motorists leap from vehicles caught in traffic to fit the blades to their wipers when a summer rainstorm broke over the streets of Moscow."
And the video of converting an old Russian car to electric!
