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When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

remembersingapore.org

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Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#11

Post by jabl »

TowerTall wrote: post #3

We 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…

> We 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.

Ladas were common over here until the late 80'ies. They all but disappeared during the 1990'ies. They weren't exactly known for quality compared to Western cars, but they were cheap, and easy to fix by yourself if you were so inclined.

And yes, the story behind the Lada was that the Soviets made a deal with Fiat to acquire an obsolete factory. So the entire factory was dismantled and shipped to the USSR. And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades.

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#13

Post by janisorlovs »

eru wrote: post #9
optymizer wrote: post #6

We had a Lada Samara. It was considered a good car in the 90s. I have "fond" memories of helping my dad push the car to the nearest gas station whenever we ran out of gas - which was a few times a week, because we usually didn't have enough money to fill up the tank. Sometimes he'd drive me most of the way to school, the car would run out of gas, and then I'd walk the rest of the way. He'd then figure out a way to ge…

Which country was that in? I assume not in Singapore, because you'd probably have just taken public transport to school?

Taking an account “growing watermelons”: either Southern Ukraine or somewhere is Caucasus

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#14

Post by janisorlovs »

jojobas wrote: post #5
TowerTall wrote: post #3

We 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…

Export cars were made with some special care, for years buying a car destined for export was preferable to a brand new one built for domestic market, even if "scratch and dent". My father always carried a bunch of membranes for the fuel pump, a spare accessories belt, distributor, fuses and possibly something else. Every item in the list was a result of limping somewhere with a vague hope of finding the part in stock…

Anything with “export” variant was considered better (in consumer goods 100%). Even butter

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#15

Post by usrnm »

jabl wrote: post #11
TowerTall wrote: post #3

We 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…

> We 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. Ladas were common over here until the late 80'ies. They all but disappeared during the 1990'ies. They weren't exactly known for quality compared to Western cars, but they were cheap, and easy to fix by yourself if you were so inclined. And yes, the story behind the Lada was that the Soviets made a de…

> And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades.

That's not true, though. The first models were, practically, Fiats, but then they diverged and the second generation (produced in the 80s) had significant changes. Niva had nothing to do with Fiat from day 1, it was developed internally

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#16

Post by ctphipps »

BohdanPetryshyn wrote: post #2

Loved 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

Or the one that made it into an Australian TV advert. Guy walks into a service station. “Got a windscreen wiper for my Lada?” “Yeah, mate. Sounds like a good deal to me.”

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#17

Post by prmoustache »

usrnm wrote: post #15
jabl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We 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. Ladas were common over here until the late 80'ies. They all but disappeared during the 1990'ies. They weren't exactly known for quality compared to Western cars, but they were cheap, and easy to fix by yourself if you were so inclined. And yes, the story behind the Lada was that the Soviets made a de…

> And then they just kept producing the same model, with extremely minor changes, for decades. That's not true, though. The first models were, practically, Fiats, but then they diverged and the second generation (produced in the 80s) had significant changes. Niva had nothing to do with Fiat from day 1, it was developed internally

The Niva was actually a very modern car when it was released. I think it was one of the first unibodied AWD.

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#18

Post by petargyurov »

I too have fond memories of my dad driving me around in our navy blue Lada. Not sure what the model was, but it was the one with rectangular headlights, not round. The chassis on that thing was solid metal.

I remember one time when I was in the back and my dad took a rather sharp turn at a major junction and the rear door swung open. I calmly alerted him to the situation and with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand reaching behind, somehow got the door closed whilst I sat semi-afraid for my life.

I remember the horn also broke so he rewired it to a custom red button that he mounted on the driver's door handle.

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#19

Post by anthk »

optymizer wrote: post #6

We had a Lada Samara. It was considered a good car in the 90s. I have "fond" memories of helping my dad push the car to the nearest gas station whenever we ran out of gas - which was a few times a week, because we usually didn't have enough money to fill up the tank. Sometimes he'd drive me most of the way to school, the car would run out of gas, and then I'd walk the rest of the way. He'd then figure out a way to ge…

Spaniard here. My dad owned a Lada Samara too; but infinitely tweaked in order to fit the standards on security from Spain in the 90's. It couldn't compete with most of the cars made form the West in the 90's (especially on acceleration and top speeds) but it worked without many issues over 20 years.

Yes, upon entering the cars of my friends' relatives it often was like entering an F16 because of how smoothly their hit 100 kph on highways, but I'm sure most of these modern cars with ABS and whatnot had had repairing/fixing issues in the upcoming years (and not cheap to fix).

Re: When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads

#20

Post by usrnm »

janisorlovs wrote: post #13
eru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country was that in? I assume not in Singapore, because you'd probably have just taken public transport to school?

Taking an account “growing watermelons”: either Southern Ukraine or somewhere is Caucasus

Watermelons can actually be grown even in Siberia. They will be small and won't taste great, but many people do it just for fun.
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