Earlier quoted context omitted.
beautiful Moldova ;)
delicious food, tasty wine and reasonably priced dentists ;)
i've only ever been to Chisinau but i loved every bit
When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
71–79 of 79 posts
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure when the Niva was initially made but I have memories of rusted Nivas from the late 80s to early '90s already.
It was released in 1977 and afaik is still sold under the "niva legend" name in several countries while the "niva" name is also used for the rebranding of some GM based models. It is not the car you'd want to commute on, or drive in highways but it is a super decent offroader. I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.
> I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.
Semi-offtopic, but what decent 'proper' off-road vehicles are available on the market these days? Seems many (most?) of the 'traditional' brands like Jeep and Land Rover as well as most pick-up trucks have long since switched to the 'luxury SUV/truck' market rather than actual off-road vehicles.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#73The Fiat 124 was actually a pretty good car for its era. Russians improved its suspension, refitted the engine, and messed up the hydraulics. Still, pretty good car for the 60s. And then, they continued to produce the same car with miniscule modifications until 2010s. That's the problem with authoritarian regimes. You can buy a plant by a fiat (pun intended), but you can't make a decent car by a decree.
They could have done much better if it was a priority. The priority however was tanks, nuclear submarines and missiles. Up to 25% of GDP was outright wasted on the military.
Not within the socialist system, there was absolute zero incentive to do a quality job. Sometimes there were incentives to do more on the quantity (see "udarnik") with moderate success but these were detrimental to the quality.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#74Loved the Lada jokes. "How do you double a Lada's value? Fill up its tank" could apply to quite a few modern cars with terrible depreciation curves
Heck, we made that joke about the Yugo.
There is a Yugo parked near a brewery in Queens NYC that always blows my mind. It's still in decent shape for its age and must be driven regularly as it's always in a different parking spot.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was released in 1977 and afaik is still sold under the "niva legend" name in several countries while the "niva" name is also used for the rebranding of some GM based models. It is not the car you'd want to commute on, or drive in highways but it is a super decent offroader. I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.
> I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though. Semi-offtopic, but what decent 'proper' off-road vehicles are available on the market these days? Seems many (most?) of the 'traditional' brands like Jeep and Land Rover as well as most pick-up trucks have long since switched to the 'luxury SUV/truck' market rather than actual off-road vehicles.
I recently came back from a safari in Africa and the standard vehicle for it is a Toyota J70.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#76We had a Lada 1200 when I was a kid. Mid/late 1970s. The car was a 1:1 copy of the Fiat 127 if I remember correctly. It served my family well for many years, and for us, it was "sort of" rock solid. That a Lada was "rock solid" was in no way the norm. People were saying that we had a Wednesday model, meaning it was assembled on a Wednesday. The saying goes that the quality of cars built on Monday/Tuesday was impacted…
According to a bit in one of Arthur Haley's potboilers, American manufacturers would ensure that VIPs got "mid-week cars", with the notion that the last weekend's drinking would have lost its effect by Tuesday, and that the next weekend' drinking wouldn't start until Thursday night.
Assuming that this is so, I wonder what effect Monday Night Football had on Tuesday quality.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The related Trabi (made of paper, some claim) have had their value multiplied https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/living/2024/03/27/trabb...
The classic claim was that the Trabi was made out of cardboard. Of course, that's a myth: the Trabi was actually made out of cheap plastic. The Trabant was actually a decent modern car when it debuted in 1957. The problem is that they produced it until 1991, when it was far from modern. I was born in Zwickau, where the Trabant was produced. It's no accident that they picked Zwickau for the production, because that's…
The Trabant was a normal car if you look at what the rest of Europe was driving at the time. In fact the DDR did not economically collapse until the late 1970s.
Ofcourse the real problem was they could not actually make enough of them. You could go to a Citroen dealer and pick up a 2CV the same day.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#78They were all over the place in Panama in the 1980's.
The Niva model (Lada's SUV) even had a crank starter...just in case.
Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was released in 1977 and afaik is still sold under the "niva legend" name in several countries while the "niva" name is also used for the rebranding of some GM based models. It is not the car you'd want to commute on, or drive in highways but it is a super decent offroader. I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though.
> I'd probably choose the Suzuki Jimny over a brand new Niva Legend though. Semi-offtopic, but what decent 'proper' off-road vehicles are available on the market these days? Seems many (most?) of the 'traditional' brands like Jeep and Land Rover as well as most pick-up trucks have long since switched to the 'luxury SUV/truck' market rather than actual off-road vehicles.
> 'traditional' brands like Jeep and Land Rover
Well that ship has sailed long ago no? I am 45y old and since I was a kid I have always seen them more as urban toys than anything despute their real off road capabilities.
To me traditional off-road vehicles brands are more like Toyota, Isuzu, Santana, Nissan and Mitsubishi. These are the ones you really see off the road frequently.