01
Origins
The Tavria of 1987 finally replaced the rear-engined Zaporozhets people's cars that ZAZ had built since the 1960s: a modern front-wheel-drive hatchback with a new overhead-cam engine, developed at Zaporizhzhia with the packaging lessons of Western superminis absorbed. By Soviet standards it was a leap — lighter and more economical than a Lada, with honest handling — and plans for it were vast. History intervened; the USSR's collapse strangled quality and supply, and the Tavria soldiered through the 1990s as cheap, fragile transport, joined by the booted Slavuta derivative. Daewoo's 1998 joint venture kept the line alive until 2007. The Tavria matters as Ukraine's own volume car — designed, engined and built there — and as a reminder of how much engineering optimism the late Soviet era still contained.
Tavria pickup · On tour · CC BY-SA 3.0
