BBC TV - 'The Car's the Star' - The Lada - 1997 (Old Top Gear)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] welcome to a world without glamor of long dark days five-year plans bread queues and totalitarian austerity a world of dereliction and despair where this car is considered the law word in luxury people wait years to own one welcome to the world of the Lada [Music] [Music] but the lackluster Lada began life very differently it was designed not in Mother Russia but in the well-heeled West a car meant for a different era different lifestyle different people it was lively personable and exciting it had Verve Brio and charisma such a promising start when Fiat launched their 1 to 4 of 1966 it was showered in praise a square-jawed saloon with a friskiness lacking in contemporary Cortinas surprisingly quick even the 1200 could crack 90 and turned out 60 eager horses and underneath the sheet metal work oil springs disc brakes and a nimble chassis the 1 to 4 had the lot after all it was Italian but while the Italians were serenading their new people's car a dark deal was being done to banish it to the Bolsheviks the Kremlin was desperate to kick-start its ailing economy with a new industry so when Palmeiro Tolyatti leader of the Italian Communist Party suggested there might be something in France covered a deal was done with Fiats help 48 thousand workers grafted for 3 years pumping 820 million pounds into the biggest car plant in Russia and with comradely gratitude they christened their new industrial heartland after the man who made it possible Tolyatti when it opened its doors in 1970 the Volsky Auto Works built just 28,000 cars by 1974 it was turning out 600,000 a year and this was the result cold as a Hoadley at home but revenues everywhere else as Lada Russian engineers were more used to designing tanks and combine harvesters worked very hard on their reconstituted sphere with the suspension raised to clear rough Russian roads and a body made from thick Soviet steel the largest center of gravity mushroomed the Fiat delicate handling had become lumpin and crew they fought that by making the brakes out of aluminium it would make the car lighter and more sportif what they didn't realize was that when it comes to a Siberian winter what freezes faster than steel aluminium calm rain but saddest thing of all they toiled for hours reprofiling a fancy new overhead camshaft the result of which was a piffling extra to case power in their well-meaning attempts to prepare the Lada for the very worst Mother Russia could throw at it Lada had sucked the very life [Applause] the lard was launched in Britain in 1974 too faint praise it looked drab dated and primitive the ad men did their best with brochures trumpeting that Ladas made other cars seemed unnecessarily overcomplicated it was sold on simplicity economy and price but it had a toolkit to shame a Rolls was there was an army surplus hand pump for blowouts in Bukhara a hand held inspection land for mishaps in Murmansk a starting handle for cranking in the caucuses and even a little nozzle for clearing out your carburetor in Kiev about twenty two years ago we had a brochure delivered into the door and advising the importing of the Lauda's into England into bridlington who was going to be the main factory and my boyfriend was with me and he's very conversed with cars and very knowledgeable when he had a look and saw the layout the technique and everything about it he was quite impressed and in fact the agent very jokingly said that really the car was as a poor man's rolls-royce but don't think that would please the rolls-royce owners very much it's as rather sluggish I have found for present day driving and so I've had a Webber's car Beretta fitted and at the first going off it was running away with me and now I still have to be careful because of its speed nine years ago to do the story because I was four kids and all the school bag has got a massive boot and it was perfect for the job it was painfully embarrassing for me at that time was he being 10 11 years old when I got to 18 years old there wasn't any less embarrassing so I got to drive it around being a student up in Sheffield I do get all of the jokes to get the jokes all the time don't stir occasionally stop my friends on a lift down the throats don't see the story I mean this is perfect for the job take 35 stone worth of floats to ten three big bikes don't really complain that well the reason about my first slide it was I don't got a lot of money a barkeep from the carry option two years later was still early so I thought you knows you got value so although for a new one I'm not twosome in love with them as what George's find him a bit heavy for me to drive but we do have a door to carry he was quite embarrassed to be seen in it but I did buy him his number plate and I did have things done to it for him because look six I'm a wagon driver by trade and there isn't a lot I did it because I mean my good old truck and bits here the only both heavy on the steering be false very lucky legs but they are reliable matters to me well I'll be honest I have tried very hard to love the Lada and I have driven them but I have to tell you that sense of warm approval has always escaped me and I think it probably comes down to the driving experience which let's be honest isn't much cop this cabin has all the ambience and comfort of a social security office the engine it makes a noise like the Industrial Revolution the whole thing rides like a tin tray full of crockery even back in 1974 when it was first launched in this country it must have made the Austin Allegro look and feel like a little Jaguar but that is to judge it too harshly because we need to put the larger in context we need to understand that it was built to survive a Siberian winter made out of called tractor parts designed to be driven by Russian peasants who would think nothing of wringing the necks of 15 chickens before breakfast on roads that were really just a collection of concrete blocks thrown together where the nearest garage could be a mountain range away and in that respect it does its job it is quite a robust tackle car the steel is quite thick the mechanicals if you maintain them will last but the thing which I find completely compelling about the larder the thing which fascinates me most of all is that there is this huge Factory in Russia in which the one end takes the raw materials potentially quite valuable ones steel brass copper brass rubber and out the other end comes this I first became involved with largest as a matter of necessity rather than choice because I needed cheap transport quickly and after I'd been driving me first one for a couple of months I realized that all the stuff that people have been saying about it was a load of bilge really and there were a very sort of friendly basic simple reliable rugged and darris a comfortable machine basically I'm not allowed nuts eight years ago I was relocated by my company and I had 3,300 pounds to spend so I thought I'll boil order because it's got four doors rear-wheel drive and it's large enough for me and basically it's just an A to B car and I've done 85 thousand miles on it and it's still going strong so why change it I'm going to keep it to this one hundred thousand miles and then send it back to Russia I've had four over the last 12 years and one thing I can say about them is that they bring your sense of humor on you become master of the snappy comeback the great thing about it is no matter where you leave it it's there when you get back but the late seventies the British motoring public were voting with their feet it was nada - the Lada things weren't looking very rosy for the former Fiat so in 1983 in desperation they gave the old dog a facelift but it was too late by then Ford had fielded their swish new Sierra with its bold Aero look next to which the sorry old Lada looked like something scribbled by a five-year-old were still the jokes were piling up to shoulder height the Lada had become a comedy turn no stand-up comedian worth his sequin jacket would dare to appear on stage without the usual list of Lada one-liners a few styling tweaks won't get to silence a chorus of cackling critics but there was the odd person who took their ladder very seriously indeed [Music] well the cars got a standard ladder block board out to seventeen hundred and ten cc's Locust Pistons all matched up and balance Safa trotting crank big valve hate Jen speed exhaust and Webber fuel injection with 40 mil throttle bodies so she's a gala she puts out about 150 horsepower clothes 210 at the wheels that's good for her good put your fur now speed out guys raring to 110 I'll split we can start on no again it's lowered suspension and gas sharks but it's standard looking from the outside so just add to the enjoyment you know I love to see people's faces when you leave them at the light [Music] sadiq standard a new Schaffer Steiner in 1990 and watched him modify it and spend all the money on it close on 15,000 pound he spent on the car that's not including buying the car so only know what it stood even about 20,000 pound was so mad now they knew who would spend all that money on something like this I always said to him if he wanted to sell it but he should ring me up and he did always makes me chuckle that I was selling art ito do my best I mean when I was self-employed I'm buying them back as quick as I can to export them to Russia [Music] and of course for the terminally insane that is this [Applause] Peter Hayes hasn't only one his class several times he's won an entire Remy championship fencing there he's mad now the obvious question Pete is why why Ilana well as you can see the tender places you're saying to me these boxes [Music] you said underdog don't you do it just because they're really laughs at the larder are they really strong but it must cost you more than the car is worth to prepare [Music] [Applause] [Music] say you heard it here first there are some ladders that are tougher than Mike Tyson from whichever way you look at him but most ladders never reached such dizzy heights often bought by innocents who never owned a new car before dealers saw them coming and did them up like kippers tsunade's love it's a joke or a story all I want from you 400 quid cash so all I want from you now now that sounds like a lot of you cat food budget but for an japan goose up a brand new key the rest 25% interest

Channel: gud6y

Views: 193,155

Keywords: bbc, top gear, the cars the star, lada, riva, lada riva, quentin willson

Id: pQgZJzjbEh4

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020