CarBrandLogos archive · Lada · 1984

LadaSamara

AvtoVAZ's first front-wheel-drive car, developed with quiet help from Porsche.

Photo: Torsten Maue · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Lada history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Lada Samara, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

1991 Lada Samara 1300 5-door hatchback 02

Origins

By the early 1980s the rear-wheel-drive Zhiguli line was fifteen years behind the European mainstream. Volkswagen's Golf had established the transverse-engined front-wheel-drive hatchback as the standard shape for a family car, and AvtoVAZ had nothing of the kind. The 2108, launched in 1984 and sold abroad as the Samara, was the answer.

1991 Lada Samara 1300 5-door hatchback 02 · OSX · Public domain

Design and engineering

It was a clean-sheet design for the company: transverse engine, front-wheel drive, a hatchback body, MacPherson struts and a new overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine. AvtoVAZ did not attempt it alone. Porsche's engineering consultancy in Weissach was contracted to assist with development work, including the engine and aerodynamics, an arrangement that was unusual at the time and that AvtoVAZ was not shy about mentioning.

1990 Lada Samara 1500 · Dogs.barking.duster.rolling · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

The car arrived as a three-door, joined later by a five-door 2109 and a 21099 saloon. Western reviewers found the gearchange and the driving position unlovable but conceded that the Samara was a genuine step forward, and in export markets it did what the Riva did: undercut everything on price. At home it became the modern Lada, the one that finally moved the company past the licensed Fiat.

Lada Samara · Nathen BR · CC BY-SA 4.0

Legacy

Production ran until 2013, latterly overlapping the Priora that developed directly from it. Nearly thirty years is a long life for a car that was already a conservative interpretation of the Golf when it appeared.

At a glance