Test drive of the LADA NIVA Legend Urban 5D (In English)

Опубликовано 10 марта 2017, 3:16

Urban 5-door modification is manufactured on the main production lines in AUTOVAZ. Altogether, in 2017 will be produced about 2000 cars which will be the third of all Lada 4x4 5-door models. This modification comes in only one, most full “lux” specification with the price tag 551 thousand rubbles (including discount) and it is the only one fully functional off roader in Russia with the price below 9 thousand US dollars. To compare, Urban Plus 3-door modification is selling for about 13.000 euro in Germany , and the cheapest version in Kazakhstan is selling for about 10 000 US dollars.

Two years had passed since I first drove Lada 4x4 Urban model. The next logical step was to launch long version of this car. And here it is- Lada 4x4 Urban 5 doors modification.
In the hot summer of 2014 the first 3 door modification of Niva Urban was introduced to the public. Its appearance caused quite a stir among the Niva enthusiasts. Opinions divided from majority, screaming “Niva is over” to rare approvals “It`s all good”.
Who inspired the idea of Niva evolution? It was now ex-president of AUTOVAZ, Swedish national Boo Anderson. He was the only one of the foreign managers who bought the old Soviet Niva long before he came to work in Russia.
But the time had shown it was right thing to do. Transfer box hasn’t changed, although several trial samples were created but never used in mass produced cars. In the end, Lada 4x4 Urban remained the work horse of Russian roads, it didn’t lose off-roading abilities even with the plastic bumper…Of course it wasn’t completely modified but it did look fresher than 40 years ago and it gained some consumer interest not only in Russia but overseas too. Lower levels of noise and vibration, air conditioning, electric mirrors and electrical window winders instead of ancient handles added to the car`s appeal . As a result, sales increased in Eastern and Western Europe, former Soviet Union republics and even South America.

Yury Yefimoff © 2017

Для упоротых русскоязычных мазохистов русский вариант тут: youtube.com/watch?v=HrG0RYP-Pi...

:-)