Word: zhiguli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...would-be motorist, problems can begin as soon as he decides he wants a car. The cheapest model, the Zaporozhets, a tinny little machine with a top speed of 55 m.p.h., sells for $5,140. The popular and somewhat peppier Zhiguli (top speed: 76 m.p.h.), a Soviet-built version of a Fiat 124, sells for $7,850-not too much above the price of an average U.S. 1978 model, but three times the average annual Soviet wage. About a third of Soviet auto production is for export, largely in the form of a version of the Zhiguli named the Lada...
When a Muscovite out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the family Zhiguli comes to a thickly wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Moscow, he had better resist the temptation to park his car and stroll among the pines and birches. Just to remind him, a NO STOPPING line is painted along the side of the road, TRANSIT ONLY signs prohibit him from pausing in villages along the way, and NO ENTRY notices block all side streets. There is also a forbidding 10-ft. green wooden fence, set back from the road and stretching for miles. If, despite these...
Midi to Padded Jacket. In its reincarnation as the Zhiguli, the 124 has undergone considerable modification. Among other things, it has been given a sturdier suspension system to survive Russia's potholed roads, and a number of other features, such as a battery that loses little power at 58° F. below zero and warmed door handles, to cope with the bitter cold Russian winters. As an Italian journalist in Moscow put it: "A sexy Italian maiden in a midiskirt and high heels has been sent off into the Russian taiga with boots and padded jacket for a hard...
Actually, it is just as well that the Zhiguli is not coming off the line in greater numbers, for Russia is still woefully unprepared for the impact of the auto. Soviet authorities frankly express their apprehensions. "By 1980, we will be struck by transport paralysis," says A. Zhukovsky, the chief of the Leningrad Transport Department. "Leningrad will have over a half million cars, while road construction is already twelve years behind present needs." Yevgeny Trubitsyn, Minister for Highway Construction of the Russian Republic, summed up: "We are just plain short of roads...
...auto-hungry that they will pay twice the list price to those who win new cars in the state-run lottery. A cartoon in the Soviet humor magazine Krokodil shows a swaddled infant in a carriage, howling, "I want a car!" at the sight of the new Zhiguli. Even when the Togliatti plant reaches full production, it is scarcely likely to meet the demand. According to one estimate, even if Russia should succeed in producing 7,000,000 cars a year, it would still take 18 years to provide one car for every one of the Soviet Union...