LADA RIVA 1.6 SLX DRIVEN - HORROR OR A BLAST?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- A lighthearted drive and review of a well loved late production top of the range Lada Riva 1.6 SLX. did they deserve their bad rep, have a look and find out!
Link to Lada : retroshite.com
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#lada, #classiccar, #ladariva, - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Where do I start?
The Samara made its UK debut in late 1987.
It's obviously had replacement front wings, as they never had panel gaps that bad.
Being an SLX it would have had LADA on a silver rectangular badge on the rear wings.
It should have door side mouldings and a black sill strip.
It would have had headlamp washers and wipers. What you're looking at it is the plastic stops for the wiper arms.
The row of switches by the gear lever are master lights switch, rear fog lamps and heated rear window switch.
Yes, they had a big battery for the size of car! 65ah is excellent cold starts down to minus 40.
They are fitted with a twin choke carburettor. The breather pipe should be attached to the Air Filter housing, but the modified filter prevents this.
Ugh , to Crapuspark leads....
They had a washer bottle as standard, and having the headlamp washers it would have had the big twin pipe reservoir. The bag is a poor replacement for the original.
That knocking exhaust is very un-Lada...
Yes, it's been lowered! That will have messed up the compliant ride, which is excellent for rough roads.
The steering is a worm and roller box. They are adjustable and it's obvious that one is out of adjustment.
The throttle linkage bushes crack and fall out and make the pedal position far too high.
They can be a bit noisy when they're tired....bonnet sound proofing missing won't help.
They are great fun though and I've loved them for years. I'm a former Lada Mechanic from Cants Lane Garage, Burgess Hill. Our association with Lada went back to May 1977.
Overall an enjoyable video 😊 Keep it up.
The main character in any Garage 54 video.
Great channel!
yo, the best comment lol btw they are located in my city
🤣
Had one in the late 80s in a light blue colour, loved that car......
we brew the gearbox, put the hydraulic lever, install the Krasnoyarsk eversion, put the sawed-off rigid springs, the collapse and departure of the wheels, and the car will drift. LADA is the best car for winter drift and one of the best for wet.❤
They’re great utility cars. Not everyone wants a trendy SUV!
I bought a 1986 lada riva slx 1.3 for £2000 in 1989 brilliant car never let me down once
These cars were 35 years out of date when they went on sale in the UK, but sold on value for money and ease of repair.
Actually, they sold on price, which isn't the same thing. And easy to repair? Try fitting and setting points to one, or replacing a starter motor, or a clutch, or a window regulator when the cable came off its rollers and drop glass fell out, or the glass wouldn't stay in its lower runner.
@@LMS2968 what is it that makes it hard to replace starter, clutch or setting the points on a lada, is there something in the way ?
It's easy to repair
These went on sale around 1983, and Fiat 124 they were based on was a 1964 model
@@LMS2968 done it all, could do it again with my eyes closed.
Back in the late '80's I inherited an '81 Lada 1500s from my dad, who had lost patience with it. It looked very similar to your car, a bit less pretentious body styling but essentially the same car, even the same beige colour. It was not a very reliable car at first with electrics issues cropping up often. It went through several OEM alternators until one day, I took the latest failed OEM alternator to a local alternator re builder. He said, 'sure he could rebuild' it but suggested it would be much cheaper were I to adapt the Lada to accept one of his off the shelf rebuilt GM ones. Long story short, I built some custom brackets to do as he suggested and MAN did that change things. The old car came to life, no more odd recurring electric faults, no more alternator failures and whole car just ran like stink! It became a fast fun reliable little car to drive summer and Canadian winter. I commuted to work in it, 50 minutes each way, for several years. Even my wife enjoyed driving the old Lada. I have very fond memories of that car. It had a very forgiving transmission that I could shift up and down w/o using the clutch most of the time. It kept up with traffic on the highway and although a fifth gear would have been nice, 4 did the job very competently. Other drivers were often surprised by its quickness from a standing start and you could just tell that being behind a Lada was not somewhere they wanted to be. It was fun. Rust eventually took its toll as always happens eventually here in eastern Canada. I drove it into the scrap yard full power, body panels flapping, to the last day. I was sad to part with the old thing but the rust got so bad that lifting it up on a shop hoist, put holes in the floor. Good times! Cheers!
Do you miss it? Every time I hear stories of these old Ladas, there's always a 50/50 feeling about them. So what GM alternator can you use with these things?
Old Mr Barley @ no 27, had a dark blue 2107 from new for 20yrs, was immac, right up till he died. Polished, garaged, purred ( retired aircraft engineer) Everyone used to scoff & laugh (1990's), used bike past ( was 10 -11 I guess) see him tinkering away in his carport. He was like "anal surgeon" Blue overalls, tools on the trolley, everything was wiped down, cleaned, laid out. " Don't touch anything" "preventive maintenance" used to tell me. Think it must of been the best kept Lada in the world. Stupid the things vids make you remember.
A real icon. ❤
That one is pretty rough but I would definitely drive a well maintained one. I would prefer it to the modern rolling iPads.
My brother had one of these in the late 80s and did a 40 mile commute with no problems until he drove it into a drystone wall one frosty morning! I remember the heater was incredible, being built to work in Siberia 😂
This is how cars should be - simple & going. I've an '80's Renault 9 that's not a whole lot different. I work on peoples "modern" wheeled tech-boxes all day every day, have no desire to own or drive one myself.
Still better than a BMW! Seriously I do like these, hearing aid beige is the best colour for these too.
Can't see how this car could be better than an e46 m3, for example. No, I don't have one.
You should clean your hearing aid when it gets this colour 😂😂
do you happen to have one?
BMW is a total nightmare cars here in Canada as well as a land rover mini cooper . Any hints folks!? Vw Mercedes all fall low on reliability scale. Top contenders Toyota Honda
@@srhondapro38 Weird. In Europe they're very high on reliability scales.
I had a FIAT 131 supermirafiori in the late 80's. 2litre twin cam.
Looked like a scruffy Lada but could cruise at 100mph and go faster.
A great sleeper.
Insurance cheap too.
I'd a rusty. Fiat 131 took the guts out fitted to lada. Body great car
My first Lada was a 3 year old ex taxi with 95k on the clock, cost me a whopping £375!
I had it for around 2.5 years, & sold it with 145k for what I originally paid for it!
Never broke down or needed anything except tyres & servicing.
Downside was heavy steering & poor build quality, but mechanics were bomb proof.
I always adored Ladas as a child, so inevitably I had a Lada Riva 1300SL for my first car, I even passed my test in it!.
The body style and interior were identical to the model in this video, even the colour was the same.
I loved that car, and had many happy trouble free miles in it.
Mine was only four years old when I had it, so it was factory standard, and very comfortable, this modified example doesn’t do Ladas any justice, due to its crude modifications.
I was so impressed with mine that I traded it in for a brand new Riva 1500E, with help from my parents, it was paid for outright, costing £3995 on the road.
Amazingly reliable, value for money transport, Ladas were unjustly ridiculed, ask anyone who owned one, and, like me, they would speak very fondly of it I’m sure❤.
BEST CAR EVER
I had Riva 1200 in the late seventies, never let me down the whole time I had it. It came with the most amazing tool kit which even included a tyre pump. Mine had round headlights which were upgraded to British sealed beam units as they were pretty poor. I think it was the emission levels being introduced at the time that finally killed them off
It's definitely cool. I would definitely buy it!!!
A perfectly acceptable mode of transport- and especially at the price point at the time...
The Riva- estate and saloon came in 1.2, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.6... the 1.3 being cam-belt driven unlike the older 1.3 pre-Riva.
They had a nice ride, were mechanically robust and did the job just fine.
Not refined in the finer points- such as switch-gear etc- but who cares about that in Russia/Siberia ?
It has to go and have heaters !
They were ok for the money, I worked for a dealership. My personal one was a Niva 4x4.
When I was a kid my dad had one of these.It was a 1.3 GL in orange with a brown vinyl roof. We called it Garfield!
I miss the lada, tough things and I remember them when they were new i walked to school off the bus past the lada dealership in totnes. Its now a morrisons fuel station
Actually sounds sweet!
Yes sounds sporty ,modern car's are too quiet
My father had this model new in 1986 or 87. I liked it as a child, as the seating position in the back was quite high. Also (as you'd expect from a Soviet car) the heater worked quite well. Funny, I remember those tiny weird door opener handles 😄
We didn't get the Lada Riva in Australia but we got the Nova l have a new respect for Lada since watching a Siberian you tube channel called garage 54 and it is a channel that does experiments and they have ready supply of Ladas and they put them through he'll any good sar wouldn't last one experiment was they put a Lada in a fresh water lake left it there for six months over winter retrieved the Lada gulled tbe motor apart carburator ect got all the water out of it put the Lada all back together and it they drove the Lada how robust are they l thought they were crappy no extremely robust
3:19 Loving the specific reference to the heated rear window....
I passed my driving test in a Lada. Never mind the heated rear window, you could heat a large house with the furnace-like heater.
According to the BOE. £4,000 in 1986 is equivalent to near enough £11,150 in 2024
Eighties car with a seventies design and sixties technology.
No nonsense, robust and utilitarian.
Sporty character shows the Italian heritage. Awesome vid!
I bought an E reg estate for £50. 1570cc badged as a 1.5, 85 bhp. Was a hoot to drive.
My dad had the estate and it never broke down especially in the winter we would drive past more modern cars on the side of the road knackered
They weren't so bad to drive back in the day. I liked them. A good little banger. Most succumbed to rust. I drove and older model 1500 wagon and a Niva. Fondly remembered in their clunky ole way.
In today's world they are antiques , but I has one as my 1st car 42 years ago , when they were good value for money and a pretty decent vehicle
I remember the singer James Blunt telling the story on Top Gear of owning a Lada Riva. "It was a 1300SL, for 'slightly luxurious'"...😂 I nearly ended up with one of these as my first car.
What lovely honest brilliant car , I would love one of them
One important factor us "Westerns" never realised living in a world of automotive abundance, is that cars like the Riva/2107 throughout its lifespan offered cheap, basic, robust transportation to a whole nation(s), from an automaker which always operated with limited funds (the Samara was introduced 14 years after the 2101) and it had to be able to operate in adverse weather conditions, where the Western made cars probably would not. I am saying this in response to many who make laugh of cars like the 2107, while enjoying their refreshment, which is maintained cooled in their fully loaded modern vehicles. And yes there are people in this world that are happy driving a now almost 60 year old design. And this is from someone who used to drive a Polish FSO Polonez 1.5...
And much depended on owner expectations. The British equivalent at the time was probably a Ford Orion, which sold at a price about 50% higher than the Lada. If the owner recognised that if something is too good to be true then it isn't and curbed their expectations to what the car could realistically achieve then fine, but others expected the same comfort, performance and economy as the Orion at two-thirds of the price, and then insisted that we should make the car perform to those standards. We couldn't, of course, so they became a pain in the arse with constant complaints, and explaining that this is what they'd bought and paid for didn't really help.
What is there not to like!❤️
Beautiful car
Enjoyed your video. Back in 1983, I purchased a brand new red Lada 1600 ES. It was like a limousine compared to the rusting old Mini I drove before. I really loved that car, some my fellow 19 year old mates didn’t think much of it. It even had little red safety lights on the interior edges of the doors which illuminated when the doors were opened. The tool kit was amazing, even included an analogue tyre gauge, along with an old fashioned ‘T’ type tyre pump. The interior was very nice, and the dash layout was excellent. All the gauges had Cyrillic letters on them. Built in radio cassette (remember those?) Terrible MPG, didn’t matter back then! Heavy steering. After owning that beauty for around five years, I bought an ex demo, dark blue Riva 1600 SLX. I had a lot of problems with this car, windows falling down inside the doors, a glove box that refused to stay closed, and a stubborn rattle. After a year, I gave up on it and went for a Skoda Favorit. I still have fond memories of that shiny red 1600 ES, it had more chrome on it than a Rolls. they don’t make them like that anymore!
After my rusted out camshaft decayed student period Peugeot 304, my 18 month old 1500 Kombi was a light year step forard when I was 21 and I should have persevered, instead of a brief disastrous Rover SD1 phase before discovering a proper car in the form of a Peugeot 205.
The poor car has got the steering wheel on the wrong side!
Ah the childhood memories. My parents had 3 in a row when I was growing up - A yellow one with a tan vinyl roof (apparently added by the importer to hide the dents on the roof when they were stacked on top of each other on the ship from Russia) when i was born, a brown A-reg1600 and then a Riva 1600SLX in maroon was the last one. It had the headlamp wipers and the scooshers. As a result, I was one of those kids who got a slagging at school. My memories. Utilitarian and quite crudely built but what they built them with was tough as old boots. If you were driving another car and you hit a Lada you knew about it. Those bumpers were like girders. Our brown one was hit head on by a police car at about 30. The Lada survived. The police Ford Escort not so much....
Apparently if you were a Lada dealer you made serious money too. I worked at Norman Fairweathers from 2005-2007 in Dundee, who had previously been a Lada dealership and he told stories of selling Lada Rivas for £4444 on the road and instantly making a grand of profit on each one. He said he would turn up to Lada dealer conferences in the early 90s and all the dealership owners were driving Porsches, Jags and Rolls Royces
Yes I think the lights had wash and wipe.
This is a 2107. The old 2101 came with a 1,2l motor, the 2105 with a 1,3l and 1,5l (export variant), and the 2107 with a 1,5l or 1,6l engine. I have a 2104 Izhevsk parts-bin special, with 2107 bonnet, grille, bumpers and dashboard, and it has a 1,6i engine. It goes pretty well.
The body styles are sedan and station wagon (the 2104 is the station wagon).
Just so you know, they last better if you work the engine between 2000-3000rpm. That one has been fiddled around with, it may have a different camshaft in it, because it seems to accelerate pretty quickly. That wing mirror isn't factory either, it's an improvement over the tiny little things those cars came with.
If it's 72hp, that's probably got the 1,6l motor in it. The 1,5 was 64hp, if I remember correctly.
I'll stop now, I could go on all night! 😂
Workmate of mine says he had one and drove him and his mates all over the country following Pompey. Says it was great!
My uncle had a Lada Riva. He squared by it !!
It was my first car in 2009-2011, LWD, of course! 1988 and same color! Made in USSR, with colored soft doors trim, because in late Russia period, interior was an ugly black plastic.
Enjoyed this.
There's a lovely FIAT 124 trying to get out from under that 'styling'
I had a soft spot for the Lada. I also liked the FSO 125p. But my mum forced me to buy a bloody Ford Fiesta!😡🤬
Back in the eighties our neighbour here in New Zealand had an estate. I got to drive it and yeah, reckoned it was pretty decent and went well enough.
I think quality control could be marginal, but if you got a decent one, you could get a good run.
The Riva was far superior to the Samara. Biggest mistake I made was trade my Riva in for a Samara (both bought new).
I went back to the dealer a few times with the Samara asking if it had been built in Linwood and not Russia. Another time there was a promotion draw, top prize,guess a Samara. You had to check a reg no against a list on the wall. A salesman asked how I got on
I replied “thank f🤬k, I’ve no won the Samara) to which he replied “lucky you”🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Back in the early 80’s, the medium of car buying and selling was primarily the auto trader magazine.
One of the most brutally honest traders was “Barry Cars” who unapologetically offered complete Barns that were dodging the scrapyard but they never tried to hide the fact!
I remember one advert for a Morris Oxford.. “. No floor; Ideal runaround”
“Lada; Communist Clatter Wagon, with heater rear window for warming your hands when pushing it”
😂😂😂😂
Love it !
The early ones were like driving tanks but they switched the better engines as manufacturing went on.
Great vid, made me smile. Im sure they are fun as a retro ride, but as a new purchse, what you have to remember was that in 86/7 (when that car was new) you could have brought a late second hand Astra Mk 1, possibly early Mk 2, for the same money, that would have been just as reliable, handled better, safer, more economical, practical, quieter, nicer to drive and generally a better car. So by the late 80s they really weren't a sensible new car purchase. I think that is where their poor rep comes from.
That looks like proper old school fun
If I remember correct the Lada did continue on after the Riva with a more up to date body shape at that time, go and take a look at the latest Lada cars and suv's wow.
I used to work with someone who had one of these. She said it was very reliable and always started, unlike the Vauxhall Astra she traded it in for. She regretted changing cars.
it’s very easy to mock these old soviet tanks but they had to put up with brutal weather and can’t imagine the Soviet Union was blessed with Uber smooth roads. Also a very limited budget for the engineers. And I guess owning a car of any sort in the USSR was a privilege. Did the best they could.
It's a car of the oppressed and should be mocked. A tyrannical regime effectively "issued" the VAZ 2105-7 as their people's car and it wasn't seen as a privilege unless you were able to skip a 3-7 year waiting list to get one for your work.
Once upon a time we had a LADA for utility..Poor interior very basic but who needs more when you are not in rain?? The heater used to work very well and the motor was very reliable but rough..immortal soviet car..they are still many of them around in Greece
The flexible washer bag was typical of 1950s and 1960s FIAT designs
The flexible washer bag is not standard. They had a normal plastic washer tank from new. Someone has fitted that bag.
My dad had a couple of these in the late seventies. 1.2, though. He used to swear by them. He thought he’d really ‘arrived’ when he was able to afford a used Volvo 244DL. As a kid back then, you developed a thick skin😁.
Lots of them ended their lives on a banger track.
Skoda Estelle was a cool car. They used to rally them. It was rear engined too.
Still very popular car in post soviet countries. Very cheap to have. Mostly are used in villages where people maintain them by themselves.
Never as bad as people made out. Tough if maintained.
Great video,suggest you try a Trabant or Vartburg for the future videos,keep up a good job !
yeah would love to
The 98 joints in the accelerator linkage made for jerky progress, it needed about 5,000 rpm for 70 mph, but the starting handle was useful on winter mornings in my 18 month old 1982 Kombi and I still have the excellent tyre pump, and its handling was significantly sharper than my dad's Marina.
Nice revue! You could get a performance kit for the 1600 engine from the dealers back when they were current, which included a pair of Weber DCOE twin chokes, & took several seconds off the 0-60, & gave it loads of mid range (I think it was compared to the Countach 50-70mph?). That one seems to have had a twin choke Weber fitted, so its probably given it an good 10bhp+ more than stock?
It is lowered, & I`m sure its helped in the corners, seems like it needs softer, or progressive springs to give it a better ride.
I NZ I had a Samara lada ,if you can get your hands on one of them. They a hoot too, great fast heater,go fast through the gears,ride high
I'm sure I've seen that one at Shite in the Park in Fife. Also, Archers in Glasgow was across the road from my secondary school in the 80s and 90s. I think you could still get a new Riva from them right up to 1996 "P" plate.
Takes me back 35 years when I had the 1.3L variety. Particularly trying to open the driver's door and bonnet, which was a real bugger. They came with house carpet, which wasn't too bad. The build quality was pants, the ride agricultural and yes some did come with wipers that supposedly cleaned the headlights. Mine didn't even have an oil filter gadge, good gears, and steering wasn't too bad when you got used to it, though it was like driving a tractor.....I do miss it... easy and cheap to maintain.
I had one as a loan car when my other car was being serviced it went everywhere no problem i had another one as a own car and it got me from the Welsh valley to Cardiff in bad snow when other cars were stuck fast
I really enjoyed your review of the Lada,western propaganda gave them a bad name because they were a Soviet era car.I would like you to do a review on a Subaru Brat please.
My 1st car (United States) in 1984 was a 1977 Datsun 810 wagon (estate for you) and had a bag for the rear windshield washer wedged between the cargo area and the body. I don't remember if the front washer fluid was hard or soft plastic though
Sorry Chris I couldn't stop laughing watching this!
Did go quite well though with its induction roar! lol
Were the cable ties on the steering wheel an optional extra! 😀
Poor you,you mock Russian technology but soon u will fell it on ur skin (literaly)...stpd fck.
my uncle had one of these and teaching his daughter to drive and she said the steering was too heavy and had to go to an instructor because he didnt want to give up the car lol
I think these are great for short, summer country side drives!
Love it a proper Tool Car (:
Get a nice 2.0 pinto in that solid old car lol great vid cheers
The answer is not as bad as you think.
This is a late model with bigger engine & some upgrades…..
The 1.3 or original 1.2 would somewhat more sedate.
I think they imported the estate version as well.
I want from Yorkshire to Italy no problems
Great motor I'd have one in a blink 🇬🇧
I think that it is cool, not at the time but now people realize that you don't have to have 600hp to have fun. Even driving a lawn mower can be fun.
would love to see a ford Zephyr again what my grandad always drove
Just remembered the later upgrade in body shape was the Samara i think it was fitted with a transverse engine as well.?
I'd love to see the hatchback version you said was available. Be worth a few bob that one being one of a kind. There was no such thing!!
You are correct.
I bought a 1.5 brand new in 1996. It was not a bad car, but it was very thirsty. However, it had rusted away in 5 years, in spite of regular treatment. Simpler days.
Yes , at around 18 mpg, mine was never exactly economical.
great cars however my parent always made me laugh on the motorway hit 60 mph and thw engine box made it whistle like a kettle always started up in cold weather nice to see one again ours was wedgewood blue.
I've subbed pal
where you from? im from carstairs junction in lanarkshire originally
My dad had one on a D plate it was a estate 1.5
were you at the morris leslie classic car auction on saturday there
Yeah mate, video uploading shortly on that!
The actual colour is called "Crem de la Crem" as I had the Lada Samara the same colour and required some spray paint for one of the panel's.
When my Samara is MOT’d you should review it
Hello, can you drop me an email at: retroratchet31@gmail.com
👍🏻
Windscreen washer bags were quite common at one time.
Someone has fitted that. They had a plastic washer tank from the factory.
My dad had one in dog poo brown, it was like a tank
Some people just want wheels. It starts, it stops. Let's you spend money on other things.
Nice car. I had 1.3.
Back in 1993, when you went to view a Stg.250,000 plus house in a Lada, the owner wouldn't believe you had the money. They were the loser as I was back after 20 years in Japan having made my fortune in the colonies. "Cash suit you, Darlin7?"