Lada Oddities

Lada Oddities.

The Names & Logo

Lada isn't actually the name of a car maker at all, but an invented name by Volga's Togliatti AvtoVaz factory to sell it's cars under in the West. It was derived because it is pronounced a similar way in all languages, has no sexual conotations and can be written both in Cyrillic alphabet in Latin
The Niva is called a VAZ-2121, BA3-2121 or HNBA in Russia. The Niva name was created for the Western market, and is presumedly named after the Niva river in same region as the AvtoVaz plant (lucky 'Volga' was already taken :) ). HNBA means 'Field' in Russian.

The AvtoVaz and Lada logo is a Viking ship (much like the Rover logo).

Lada logo

Biggest One-roof Automaker In the Word

When the Tolyatti/Togliatti plant (named after Palmiro Togliatti, a leader of the Italian Communist Party) was built it was the largest car factory in the world (and probably still is today; in 2008 the factory was the biggest per-factory volume output in Europe). The whole factory takes up 600 acres with 400 buildings and has over 300km of assembly line. Also it was the only factory where virtually 100% of the car was made in the same factory.

Biggest one-roof car factory in the world

Nivas have also been built (mostly from kits from Togliatti) in Greece, Ecuador, Uraguay and Egypt, and are currently built in Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.

First to the North Pole

Despite what Clarkson claims about his Toyota being the first road vehicle to drive to the Pole, it was in fact done many years earlier by Lada Nivas.

In 1998 a Niva was dropped by parachute and finished track by its own. In 1999 a Niva Marsh was driven to the Pole.

In January 2000 a standard Niva Marsh (VAZ-1922) reached the North Pole without any modification. It was driven by two Russians from research base about 114 km from the Pole. They say that the Marsh behaved perfectly, maintaining an average speed of 20-15 Km/h in an average temperature of -30ºC. Sure, it was a Niva Marsh (a Russian made Niva monster truck on a UAZ 466 chasis), but then you could buy a Marsh off the shelf from VAZ - unlike Clarkson's modified Hilux. More info .

Jeremy Clarkson's wrong - Niva Marsh was first to the North Pole

Nivas are also one of the few cars that can be found on all five continents: Nivas were used at Russia bases in Antarctic. There's also a claim that a Niva was at the South Pole in 1992 (though this could be a mistranslation?).

Highest ascent by a motor vehicle

Nivas held the world record for altitude climbed by a vehicle. In 1998, a team with Lada Nivas drove to 5,200 meters altitude to to base camp on Mount Everest. On the 16th of September 1999 at 2:30 in the afternoon, the Extreme Expedition team of St. Petersburg took 3 Nivas to an altitude of 5,726 meters, on the Tibetan Plato in Himalayas. This record stood until 2005 when specially prepared Volkswagen Touareg reached an altitude of 6,080 meters in Chile. More info .

Highest assent by a motor vehicle

Rally-Raid Champion

The Niva was a winner in many off-road racing rallys in the early to mid-'80s including outright wins on the Algerian Rally, Rally of the Summit, Rally of Tunisia, Atlas Rally, Baja Espana Aragon, the Paris 24, Cameroon Rally, Baja Hungry, Hungarian Raid Rally, 3 times Australian Off-Road Championship winners, a 1-2-3 in the Wynn's Safari, a 1-2-3 in the Rally of the Pharaohs - and the first ever world rally raid championship title.

Only outright victory on the the Paris-Dakar eluded the Niva - though it achieved over a dozen stage wins and several podium finishes. A VFTS turbo powered Niva, Lada Poch 1800, scored 3rd overall in the Dakar in 1981 (BRIAVOINE/DELIAIRE), and 2 litre Poch Nivas finished the Dakar 2nd overall in 1982 (BRIAVOINE/DELIATRE) and 1983 (TROSSAT/BRIAVOINE), and a Niva just missed podium with a 4th in 1986 (LARTIGUE/GIROUX). Jacky Ickx gave up his Porsche to drive the 1987 Dakar with a 290hp Simca based F2 engined Niva ROC. More info 1 info 2 info 3 and Ozzie victories.

Various hybrid Nivas have suceeded in other forms of off-road racing, including a mid-engined Ferrari powered Niva and a twin Yamaha R1 engined Niva.

The Niva was still used on the Dakar until the mid '90s, and was homologated for international racing in T1 class until at least 2006.

A Niva won the USSR 1983 off-road autocross championship.

Nivas also have a good record in 4x4 trials, and have won many European and South Amercian trials, more info .

Niva - off-road racing champion

Hippopotamus vs Crocodile?

From what I can make out in Russia the original 3-door Niva is nicknamed Hippopotamus and the longer 5-door Crocodile.

Hippo disguised as a crocodile?

Lada Rotary Engine

In the late '70s and early '80s AvtoVaz produced a 115/140hp Wankel rotary engine that is very simliar in format to the Mazda rotary. It was fitted to various VAZ and GAZ cars, but not the Niva (except Marsh) as far as I know. More info .

Lada Wankel rotary engine
It looks so much like a Mazda 13B that a replica rotary Riva would surely be very easy to create...

Also see: Niva Development History (Ivan Shevelenko) - a comprehensive history of the development of the Niva with lots of prototype and pre-production images (1.3M)