CarBrandLogos archive · Lada · 2004
Got its best publicity from a prime minister and a very long Siberian highway.
Discover the storyPhoto: Autos.ua · CC BY 3.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Lada Kalina, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
The Kalina, launched in 2004, was AvtoVAZ's supermini for the post-Soviet market: a small front-wheel-drive car offered as a saloon, hatchback and estate, named after a berry-bearing shrub. It was cheap, simply engineered and aimed at buyers who wanted something newer than a Riva without paying import prices.
Lada Kalina Super 1600 · own work LSDSL 11:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC) · CC BY-SA 2.0 de
02
Its most memorable outing was political. In August 2010 Vladimir Putin, then prime minister, drove a bright yellow Kalina Sport along the newly completed Amur Highway between Khabarovsk and Chita, a journey of some two thousand kilometres, with press in attendance. The exercise was intended to publicise both the road and the domestic car industry. It was widely reported that support vehicles carrying identical cars followed the convoy, which gave the story a second life it was not designed to have.
Lada Kalina Super 1600 rear · LSDSL · CC BY-SA 2.0 de
03
Production ran to 2018, when the Granta absorbed the model's role in the range.
Lada Kalina 1118 Cranberry · Thomas doerfer · CC BY-SA 3.0
At a glance
Produced
2004–2018Technical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the Kalina's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →Lineage
Contemporaries from the 2000s
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