Broken For this week’s theme I thought I’d post some of my photos of broken cars.
Wheel-less Niva
broken Zaporozhets
where cars go to die…
Weekly Photo Challenge: Broken
Lada
Beasts of Burden
Older British cars that have survived may be cared for and cosseted, older Soviet cars are used as daily beasts of burden with heavy duty roof racks to carry heavy loads.
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- GAZ Volga 24
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- Moskvitch 412
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- Laden Lada
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- Maize
Soviet Cars
Ladas were the butt of many jokes, when they were imported to Britain in the seventies and eighties. Most disappeared from UKΒ roads after the Soviet break up, as Russians and others from the former Soviet Union were intent on buying them up.
What do you call a convertible Lada with twin exhausts?
A wheelbarrow
In the early seventies my father had a Moskvitch 427 for a year, he exchanged it shortly after the rear passenger door came open as we were travelling along…we almost lost my sister…but she clung to the back of the front seat for sufficient time to allow my father to stop. I don’t have a photo of his Moskvitch, which was a tan coloured estate with a vinyl roof.
Rusty but running Moskvitch 427
Moving to Tbilisi, I regularly see Ladas and Volgas and less commonly Izh, Moskvitches, Zils and Zaporozhets.
GAZ Chaika M14
This Chaika was parked near us for months and then one day it disappeared never to return.
ZIL114
GAZ 69
Lada with Armenian plates and Ford badge in grille
Lada Estate
Walking to the metro takes about 15 minutes and I see at least half a dozen Ladas. The other common Soviet car here is the Volga, these I only knew of from books in England but here they are plentiful.
GAZ Volga 24
GAZ Volga 21
I remember in the Observer’s Book Of Automobiles I had as a child the last car was a Ukranian built Zaporozhets 968M, which closely resembled an NSU Prinz. I had never seen one until I arrived in Georgia, it is not common here but there are a few still about.
Zaporozhets
The only Soviet cars I actually own are in 1:43 scale.
Models of cars made in USSR
Where Moskvitches go to die
Just outside Pasanauri on the Georgian Military Highway are some interesting abandoned vehicles. The car behind my wife has been identified as a ’58 Buick , by Paul in the Autoshite Facebook group, thanks π A long way from Detroit.
