Lada men - by their hats shall ye know them
Lada enthusiasts and owners gathered together in Kangasala near Tampere last weekend
By Timo Siukonen
In Kangasala near Tampere last Sunday, a winter get-together rally for owners of old Ladas - Russian-built cars that became real people’s vehicles in Finland during the Soviet era - turned into a cavalcade of natty clothing accessories and an exchange & mart event of spare parts for the venerable and boxy cars.
Raw nostalgia could be seen, heard, and scented on the nose.
The Finnish automobile and road museum Mobilia was thronged with a crowd of Lada enthusiasts wearing accessories that once belonged to the Soviet Army.
The colourful headgear of Lada fans included pointed caps, fur hats, knitted caps, and uniform caps.
When these gentlemen were asked whether a Lada - not exactly a paragon of reliability - can be started under severe frost conditions, they cried in cheerful unison like at an Obama election rally: ”Yes, it can!”
Mika Vilppo from Tampere showed in practice what one should do: open the bonnet, put your fingers on the petrol pump and pump a couple of times.
Then close the bonnet, open the door, and start the engine with the ignition key.
When asked whether it is ice-cold in the car in the winter, Lada fans gave a negative answer in the same vigorous fashion.
Vilppo said that the heat begins to rise to the windscreen already after the car has been driven some 200 metres.
Another Lada enthusiast from Tampere, Oiva Pirjola, confirmed Piippo’s comments.
He was among those who set up a Lada owners' club in Kangasala in 1997.
Since then two kinds of people have been participating in Lada meetings. Some take a humorous attitude towards the Lada, while some others are more serious and even rather emotional about it all.
”At this age, I can say that Lada is not a car but a vehicle”, Pirjola noted.
Before retirement, Pirjola drove a bus and a lorry for 48 years.
”At these get-togethers Lada fans tell each other all the latest news, while patriotism is maintained at the Transport Units’ Guild for reservists”, Pirjola reported.
Now for a dangerous question. Do Ladas have any defects?
Of course they do, Mika Vilppo admits.
Electrical cable joints become oxidized, and the ends of the ignition switch tend to wear out.
But it does not make sense to become a Lada owner if a person does not understand anything about technology or cannot repair defective parts.
”Repairing a Lada gives a family a fine feeling of togetherness”, someone praised on the website of the Lada club.
The chairman of the club is Mika Suomalainen from Seinäjoki in Ostrobothnia.
He says that the membership has dropped from more than 1,500 to around 800, when the annual meeting made a decision to start a real-time register and to raise the annual membership fee from EUR 5.00 to EUR 12.00.
There are still plenty of Ladas in service on Finnish roads. For years in the 1970s the cheap and cheerful Lada 1200 series, based on the 1967 model of the Fiat 124, was the best-selling car in Finland.
Production was not interrupted by the fall of the Soviet Union, though sales of the older models tailed off from the mid-1980s, partly in favour of the newer Samara.
As recently as 2004 there were more than 35,000 Ladas on the vehicle register in Finland, making it the 18th most common car in traffic.
As the attached article indicates, things are not going quite so well at present at the car's main manufacturing plant in Tolyatti (or Togliatti), on the Volga River.
The new-found wealth of the Russians has led them to prefer imported wheels, often with fancy German badges.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.3.2010
Previously in HS International Edition:
Global recession forced Lada´s hometown to its knees (6.10.2009)
Links:
Lada (Wikipedia)
Mobilia
Lada Club of Finland (briefly in English)
Lada UK Ltd
TIMO SIUKONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
timo.siukonen@hs.fi
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| 2.3.2010 - THIS WEEK |
Lada men - by their hats shall ye know them
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