Facts about “Pennies” that you might not know.
46 years ago began the history of cars VAZ: 19 April 1970, off the Assembly line in Togliatti came off the car that changed the course of automotive history on the expanses of the Soviet Union. This is VAZ-2101 “Zhiguli” or just “penny”. But few people know that to release this car could near Kiev. And such a project was considered.
Let’s start with geography. Why for the construction of the plant AVTOVAZ chose Togliatti? More precisely – Stavropol-na-Volge, what was the name of the city, which in 1967 began a huge construction site of the Volga automobile plant. Among the possible variants there were 54 different sites in different parts of the USSR. Now few remember this, but according to AUTO-Consulting, among finalists there were 6 cities: Yaroslavl, Kiev, Minsk, Belgorod, Gorky and Togliatti.
The winner was chosen according to three criteria:
1. Proximity to sources of supply of construction materials;
2. The presence of machine-building plants in the region;
3. Well-developed transport infrastructure, power generating capacity, the availability of suitable construction organization and sufficient number of workers not employed in manufacturing products of social value;.
All indicators Brovary approached, but it was necessary to lobby in the “top”. At the last moment the Ukrainian lobby “to push” the project in Moscow was not enough and defeated the city of Togliatti. The Central Committee of the CPSU and agreed to take the building there. By the way, in our time Brovary again considered as the place for building of factory of Peugeot-Citroen, but the second time the suburbs of Kiev no luck.and though history does not know subjunctive mood, the fate of the brewery could be radically different
And another Ukrainian city, which was considered under the construction site of the future auto giant — it’s been Cherkassy. Most interesting is that 38 years later the production of Lada go back, to the factory Bogdan, but, of course, not the VAZ-2101.
Initially, the role of “penny” is generally considered a completely different car. Front wheel drive and more advanced in technical terms. Yes, and the FIAT-124, which became the prototype of the VAZ-2101 differed from the Soviet “twin”. More than 800 changes were made in the design of the “first model”. But in fact FIAT never released the VAZ-2101, as the cars are quite different. And the myth of the “cents” of the Italian Assembly from the first batch — it’s just a myth.
