My Dad had a few Ladas over the years...but the one that we loved was the Riva 1500. I think is was a de-luxe model as the grill was square, there were head lamp wipers, headrests on both front and (I think) rear seats and a big arm rest in-between in the back seats. He used to say his Lada had "Rolls-Royce" features. Thanks for this, all the best and RIP my old man.

It's really strange, but somehow, I find this car more endearing and interesting than, a Million Pound Supercar, reviewed by a chinless wonder living off daddy's money.

Lada along with Škoda are my two favourite car brands of all time, when I passed my driving test in the early 90’s, this was my dream car, and despite pleas from my dad, it was the only car I wanted, so after visiting a local Lada dealership my parents bought a brand new one for me, it only cost £3995 on the road, half the cost of a Ford Fiesta at that time, I excitedly took delivery of it on 2/1/1993, and can still remember the registration number, K374 FWE, it came with an awesome toolkit and was exactly the same colour as this one, but a 1.5E saloon, l loved that car so much and was very proud of it, this video really is a trip down memory lane for me, the sounds of the ultra reliable engine, the practical interior, and all of the little idiosyncrasies of this oh so cute car, take me right back to being a 17 year old girl in the early 90’s proudly driving around in my first car, and my dream car!!!.

I like the way you treat all cars as individuals with there own character and not just how they drive

I have a great memory of a Lada Riva when a friends dad picked us up whilst walking home from school freezing cold in a blizzard in the mid 1980s.It was a hero car from that moment on, and oh the heater!!!!! it was awesome.I never took the mick out of it again!! most welcome sight seeing a Lada Riva warmed up in a blizzard with a driver shouting "get in".

Back when I was a kid Ladas were actually a pretty common sight on the road in my area..How times have changed..It may not be the most stylish of vehicles but there is still something quite charming about it :)

This car is as peak HubNut as you can get - and never before have I seen a car suit someone so well. You MUST get your hands on a Niva Cossack 4x4!

The bullying at school I got for my parents owning a Lada Riva was unreal. Yet it never let us down engine wise.

Reminds me of early 1990s Hull. 90% of the taxis were white Rivas. Add a beaded seat cover, a cracking 2-way radio and the smell of Brut for that authentic trip up Beverly Rd experience. Headlight wipers always seemed such a decadent capitalist luxury on a communist car.

My first car was a Lada 1200ES, "V" reg with the round headlamps. Also had a sky blue Riva saloon later on. Neither car let me down and I didn't really look after them if I'm honest. Very good workhorses for basic transport. Hate it when snobs lambast them just because they were cheap.

I love my 2105. Started it in -20c after sitting for a week now, purred like a kitten from the first rpm. Mine has no play in the steering, and the brakes are even. Lovely little car!

Used to work at a Lada main dealer. Had one as a company car...LOL much micky taking was had, but hey, I had a free new car and all my mates either had an old banger or no car at all.

I live in Norway, so these aren't super common anymore. But I saw a really nicely kept one in my city earlier this summer. Red paint, all the chrome was nice and polished, nice rims, slightly lowered etc. unlike all the bland crossovers and SUVs around it, it just looked like a nice, charming old sedan. it stood out parked in the street.

Just very nice basic motoring with lots of character. Lada rules!

I helped a friend, years ago, to buy an FSO Polonez. They lived in London and the Polonez was a super-comfy and surprisingly nippy car. I can understand the attraction of former Soviet built cars completely. (I have my own Trabant 601, which I love dearly).

I had an immaculate FSO saloon back in 1990 which I got for £400. My boss bought it for his daughter who refused to drive it. So I got it. It really was in perfect condition so a bargain. I used to drive from Leicester to Dartmouth to do lead roofing restoring Kingswear castle. That's a round trip of around 500 miles every week. Reliable and practical. In fact I got more people admiring it than almost any car I have had since. It was a peach. EDIT : Oh yeah.Nearly forgot! it had four headlights. Extremely cool. (only two wipers I'm afraid).

The joy you'd get in one of these reversing off your drive in thick snow; whilst neighbours either side spent half hour digging out their new Audi computers on wheels!

My friend's dad had three Rivas back in the 80s and early 90s. He never had any problems with them at all. One of the reasons people got rid of them at relatively low mileage was that they developed a timing chain rattle which was a surprisingly easy fix that wasn't widely known about. The timing chain just needed adjusting. All you had to do was park the car on the level with the handbrake off, slacken a bolt on the side of the block, put it in 4th gear and push it backwards a couple of feet. Then you tightened the bolt and you were good to go. It actually meant you could buy a Riva extraordinarily cheaply and have a decent reliable car for next to nothing. That is if you could handle being the butt of everyone's Lada jokes. The Lada 1.6 engine actually had a higher horsepower rating than many of the 1.6 engines of the day. I also knew a guy who used to rally Rivas. They were so tough that most of the time when he crashed it, the damage wasn't much more than cosmetic. He had a purpose made manifold to take twin 40 Webber carbs. The Russians were always good at building tanks.

A simple but honest car...thank you for the awesome review comrade!

If ever a car summarised the saying 'it does what it says on the tin', this would be it. You have to admire its honesty.

Ladas were among the most popular cars in Finland in 1970s and 80s. Never driven one, but I do recognize the characteristic engine sound. Lovely memories! U don't see these as daily drivers anymore, they are more like hobby cars for summertime (or perhaps for the winter for some drifting fun).

Эх родная сердцу четверочка) Сам езжу на 2107, и мне по кайфу)

Having owned a couple these in the past, I loved these cars, my 1600 lost a rear wheel driving out of Blackpool.. It ended up with all four wheels held on with three wheel nuts I used to tighten them up once a week. Ahh those were the days.

This is actually the 21047 - the 7 indicated the export model. Washer fluid is absent from the rear window washer because the bottle has a faulty seam... it's never worked. The Riva never got injection in the UK, they were carbed right to the end. Northern Europe and Canada got the Riva with the same single point injected engine we did in the Niva. Guessing it was due to tax that we never got them here (as 1500cc was the cut off point to take you into the most expensive road tax band back in the 90s). So this mutant creation is probably the only 1.5TBi Riva in existence. Check engine light comes on due to an issue with the vehicle speed sensor wiring... it's on my to do list. You actually stop noticing the steering wander after a while would you believe! I only ever notice it these days if I've not driven it for a few days! Motorway driving tends to see you gently nudging her back in line periodically with a sort of gentle sawing motion. The revs holding momentarily on the throttle release is an emissions management bit of the injection system to help reduce unburnt fuel entering the exhaust, so it holds the throttle open for a half second or so before cutting fuelling on the overrun (to protect the cat). Brakes always seem to wander a bit, the bias is heavily towards the front, and combined with the steering, yeah...you get used to it. The engine is indeed SOHC, chain driven with quite an odd (if visually attractive) rocker arrangement operating the valves. Lack of left foot space is a victim of the RHD conversion. Niva suffers from that equally. Rust wise I consider myself lucky...yes I've got the usual rotten wing tops, but the car is otherwise sound. It's a car which rewards you more once you're used to it. If you ever wanted a longer shot to see what you thought after a day or two, feel free to drop me a line. As you say, they're so rare nowadays that it's a shame not to share the experience.

I drive a 2107 daily. Has done so the last 12 years!! Absolutely love my lada

Had a friend who had all kinds of cars from Mk2 Jags to Capris and Saabs. He bought a Lada from almost new and loved it! Good review thanks Ian.

Yep. I lived in USSR/Russia till 2008. My father bought this model in 1990, stopped driving it around 2000 and scrapped around 2010 when a local council started to complain about a disused car occupying a parking lot. It had 1300 cc engine (I guess 60 hp). I learned to drive in this car.

I had use of my dads LADA back in 93 and I have to say I really loved its simplicity I always remember the smell of new plastic and PVC seating his was a Burnt orange colour .

Always remind me of a shrunken volvo 240 from some angles.

The Lada Riva estate always makes me think of Maureen on Driving School haha. An excellent video as always!

i have the same clock/mirror, ive had it since my first car in 1988, and its now fitted to my aygo!

Argh. I've seen this on Autoshite a number of times and have a real hankering. When I was a kid, we had a Proton and Lada dealer at the end of our road in Gravesend. I asked Dad what a 'Lada' was when I was about 8 and his only comment was 'cheap Russian rubbish'. I think I've wanted one ever since.

When I was an 8 year old child in 1990, my dad replaced his 1979 Austin Allegro 1500 LE that blew it's 5 speed gearbox with a 1985 Lada Riva 1300 GL saloon in beige, complete with brown vinyl roof. Because of the font used on the 1300GL badges on the rear wings, I thought it looked like BOOGLE. The rear window mechanisms packed in and the windows were jammed up with dolly pegs. As I approached high school age, I was glad of my dad's decision to replace the Lada with a Mk2 Cavalier Sri - it was like a supercar in comparison. I didn't 'get' my dad's choice in cars and my mum hated driving it. But now, as a purveyor of all things old, I can appreciate the appeal of a BOOGLE.

There was a time when I would have really wanted such a car. Simple, practical, rugged and totally different. It is still very appealing in all its Eastern Bloc glory. Love the non-canted rear wiper and the ground clearance to cope with bad roads too. Nice to see the body metal substitute gaffer tape doing its job.

My dad had one of these, used, in the early 80's; before that had a Granada Ghia, 3 litre auto, 'R' reg -77? He got rid of it got a pale blue Niva with brown vinly roof and really snazzy alloys. Bought it from the local Vicar. It was, I suppose, a top end model and pristine. Two things I remember about it. 1) Incredibly heavy and vague steering. 2) A 30+ piece tool kit as standard. Truth is, itnever went wrong. For all it's shortcomings, I loved it. Oh, any similarities with the Granada? Yup....vinyl roof. (I had a Hillman Avenger Tiger once; had a half vinyl roof if I remember correctly.)

Tea, feet up and Hubnut reviewing an old Lada.. Heaven

Ahh that brings back memories...I use to have a white 1500cc Lada Riva Deluxe back in the 90s, I am sure the Delux tag could have be challenged by trading standards, this had a chrome grill, plush velour red seats and front head light wipers. The head light wipers didn't touch the glass and the washer wasn't powerful enough to jump the 2cm gap to go on the glass. For some strange reason it had tubes in the radial tyres which would regularly get punctures at approximately every 300 miles, I got that good at changing them I could have worked in an F1 pit stop! At idle the engine would rev its self to the red line which was always embarrassing at traffic lights especially with another car next to you. It also liked to cut out on the motorway when it got past 65mph, it would kick back in with a cough and a cloud of black smoke after what like felt like an eternity, I think this was its eco mode? Fuel consumption was in the low to mid twenties, the window mechanism used a cable system like a cats cradle and when it broke you needed David Copperfield to fix it. I couldn't find Davids phone number or fix mine so I used planks of wood to keep them closed permanently. The boot lid would fly open when you hit a bump making the rear view mirror useless. The seats were just slabs of foam covered in velour with no support, very comfy however when we all had that shell suit craze we would all roll about like a pea in a whistle and be statically charged up for a month.. The steering lock was almost as good as a London bus and it had no power steering, I lived in a terraced street so trying to parallel park the thing was great entertainment for the whole street for about 3 hours. I sold mine to a chap that exported it back to Russia..... It was character building.. :-)

Always annoys me when people say Ladas are crap. They were carefully engineered to survive in very harsh climates, and the design proved itself more than up to the task. They are reliable, rugged and the engines keep dragging themselves along for far longer than most 1960s designs. They go where most Western vehicles to this day will fail. It is hardly surprising that refinement and economy went out the window to achieve this. All design is compromise, and I think the Lada guys did very well with the Riva. So they drive like a van, so what!

You're not drunk enough to be driving a Lada, acording to my studies of russian dashcam videos. ;)

Lovin the Lada! Couldn't agree more Ian when you say "particularly delicious"!

I love this... NO silly NAFF childish buttons going "BEEP" ..DIY service and low running costs.... KISS..Keep It Simple Stupid.. It is like when the Jonses next door are showing you there latest new car (They have bought on tic) and they are showing you the car and you have to PRETEND you are impressed.... Well if you press this button it goes "BEEP" ..You try your best not to yawn ... SEEN IT ALL BEFORE .. Superb video and superb car... Does what it says on the tin... Gets you from A to B EDIT..The MOT runs out on the 07th June 2019 ..Hope she gets a new MOT test OK without to much pain.. She produces an impressive 72 BHP and uses 10w-40 semi synth oil so says opie oils anyway..

I adored my 1979 lada 1500 estate that I bought in 1983 for £925 cash. It was my first car and I had it painted Porsche red by a Mates dad,had a vinyl roof fitted AND a very decedent pop up and remove sunroof (all the rage and £100 fitted). I took it to South London were a rally team were based (they rallyied ladas) and had the engine done to " fast road" with a cam,rebore,worked on valves and twin Weber 40's £800 of the queen's pounds fitted. She like a dollop of oil,but kept up with an astra GTE on the traffic lights race through Luton. Next up was the obligertry 8ft fibre glass Ariel and 4 round spots fitted to the chrome over riders and 2 square fogs fitted below the bumper. I fitted wider (175 /13 tyres). I kept her for 2 years before a mk 5 Cortina 2.0GL from crest cars in Luton caught my eye,and my bank manager agreed my first ever loan.

The voltmeter is dancing to the tick of the indictors lol

Dunno why people hated this thing, it’s a delightful motor!

Į actually had one. It was quite reliable after everything had fixed. And if that was agricultural, you should have try Moskvich, another russian car.

Probably the most crashed car in Russia judging by the various dash cam videos on here..🤦‍♂️

My Great Grandad had one of these, same colour but it was the saloon one. Used to go bombing around the town with it to the shops. Ran as sweet as a nut. Anyways, he died when I was about 12. And when he passed the car got offered to everyone who could drive in the family. For free too. And not one person wanted it. Was such a damn shame. A free car, and everyone passed on it as it was a Lada. Being 12, for reasons I wasn't allowed the car, which was also a shame. The car got sold for like £200, and the rest is history. Good memories though, it was his pride and joy that car. He kept it for years, pristine in his garage. Brings back memories.

finally i have been waiting for one with lada. got lada 1200l myself very nice cars :)

Lovely! Had a blue one of these, terrific fun, Comrade

That engine really does make a very appealing noise.

Ironic you mentioned Ladas being exported back to Russia. When I worked at Stansted, we used to get the Russian cargo crews bringing through Ladas on pallets for loading onto the Antonov freighters back in the late 90's.

Way back in 1974, as a 22 year old, someone gave me lift in a Fiat 124 Special T. ( 1600cc twin cam ), What followed was a very, very fast drive across Salisbury Plain.

Service history recorded on Dymo labels. Proper job ;-)

Forgot to say, Ladas are/were great winter cars and that was also important thing (along with cheap price) in Finland, Russia and Baltic countries. It starts and runs great in cold and had a good powerful heater (don't know similar or different than UK). Some older Ladas with round headlights had also hand-cranck as standard on toolkit and you can start your Lada crancking by hands if battery was dead. You can also find films of handcrancking Lada from youtube.

These were truly good, tough & reliable cars. I have owned 3 Riva's and a Samara (rubbish). the last one I owned was 3 years old with 14k on the clock, I put 90k on it in 6 years, never broke down or failed to start, no electrical problems, but it was killed off by a Skoda that jumped the lights!

My grandfather owned a Lada Riva Estate but it was the top of the range one complete with the headlamp wipers as well. I swear I love this old car and in no small part due to the memories I had in it. And the gearbox whine is just amazing to me! I know these cars (and Škoda's) got really taken the mickey out of but I've been in both (my father owned a Škoda Rapid) and I hold a rather immense love for them despite all of the arguably better machines I've been in. These cars are just so endearing. That and the rear seats were vinyl and incredibly soft. It also smelled of tobacco which you'd think was a bad thing but it was strangely nice as it smelled weirdly fitting for such a car. :D

Nice video Ian. I bought and sold a lot of Ladas in the late 1980s, particularly remember the 1600es as I drove one from UK to southern Italy and back on holiday once without incident!

Interesting as a 240 fan to read all the comparisons with the similarly practical and solid Volvo, given that both had their roots in the 1960s and both were discontinued in 1993. People used to make fun of those too for not being 'sporty'. Not sure why everything has to be sporty now, what's wrong with simple, understated, robust, practical, good value for money? Of course the Russian factor added to the mockery of the Lada by our idiotic media. Like the Volvo, these were kind of an anti-status symbol for practical people who prefer engineering to bling, and I like that in a car. In a world where every other person now seems to drive a leased £40k Audi, I'd rather drive something (like my 240) that garners genuine affection and sparks nostalgia (rather than annoyance at another wide boy who"s apparently forgotten where his indicators are). As you say they're now pretty much non-existent - I remember seeing a piece on TV in about 1998 about how the Russians had repatriated them all - meaning that daft prices now abound for those that remain. If you want to see what these things are capable of, have a look at 'Garage 54' on YT. My abiding memory of the Riva also involves an estate, this one belonging to a school friend, and smuggling two extra people into Drayton Manor theme park under picnic blankets sometime in the summer before our A-levels :)

Don't knock manual locks and wind up windows or call them old fashioned. My 2012 Peugeot 107 is all manual. Less to go wrong.

Lada cars gave me 20 years of reliable motoring, I use to fit wheel arch liners from a Austin montego and stopped any corrosion inside the wings

What a great car. Hints of Volvo and the same colour scheme as a bowl of borscht.

Absolutely superb! A true HubNut classic review. I would have loved to own the 1200 saloon with the round headlamps. A 1500 is too 'top of the range' for me. I seem to remember the Lada adverts giving a long list of all the features then at the bottom of the page showing you the price. Wonderful cars and now I want one!!!

We still Have Ladas in Nicaragua, a favorite!

We had one of these in my childhood. I believe it was sold as the Lada 2104 here in the Netherlands. It always broke down, but it always was an easy fix. I´d buy a Lada now but only because I can fix them myself.

I used to work with a bloke who bought a brand new Riva estate every three years. They never let him down, and he swore by them!

Greetings from Russia ! Im surprised that this passed European eco standards.

There is only 49 of these left in the country, well done on owning one!

My uncle had this. It had a front headlamp wipers ! Undestroyable. If they made an updated version with AC I would buy it. It so simple. Step in, drive, step out. Repeat.

I think Lada sales in the UK did end in 1997 due to emissions regs. You can still buy a Niva in Germany. I think they call it the Lada 4x4 as the Niva name was flogged to Chevrolet. Great video BTW. I wish I had a chance of a go in a Riva before the got repatriated.

Yes! Finally an interesting car (in my opinion)! This is so HubNut,clicked immediately after i saw notification

Drove a Riva Estate for years, it did over 100,000 and was brilliant.

My dad had the saloon with 5 speed gearbox and amazingly alloy wheels! It was the same colour as this one. It was pretty quick and did surprise people as my dad was willing to give it the beans at traffic lights.

A VAZ 21047 no less! I love these cars. If only I could press "like" more than once!

Wow, a car I actually own. I have the 2107 saloon though. Great car, although I must agree that it indeed feels very agricultural.

My Welsh teacher at Aberaeron secondary school, Mair Fach [Jones] who commuted from Ponterwyd every day, had a Fiat 124 saloon back in the early 1970's. So that is the ancestry of this Lada. Your video brings back some memories, notably that Mair Fach was literally 'fach' or 'small'. She used to sit on two cushions in order to see out of the windscreen. Presumably if she is still alive she would be between 90 and 100 years of age by now.

My dad had a bright orange 1.3 gl with a brown vinyl roof back in the 80's that we called Garfield! It was our first newish car and we loved it. The main dealers were brilliant for the day and would come and collect your car and leave a replacement at every service!

Many people complained about how sparse they were but you couldn't knock them in winter.

The 60/70s lada where almost exactly the same as the fiat , accept the lada was much stronger and lasted far longer ! They where actually very stylish as well! People knocked them but they where better built than Leyland cars I'm afraid??

I bought a Lada Riva Estate brand new in 1989 it wasn’t trendy or state of the art but it never let me down once in the 5 years I had it and cheap to run

Thank you so much for this video. Riva Estate (2104) is often overlooked as a derivative from the main Riva model (2105). 2107 ("deluxe" trim level of 2105) and 2104 are both quite common on Russian roads. Story time: the presecessor of Lada Riva Estate, the 2102, was the car I had my first journey in (from hospital to my parents' house when I was a newborn), and 2104 was the car I was driven around in by my grandfather and later by my father. It was the first car I ever tried to drive and it was the car I drove for two years after getting my driving license. It served my family for 18 years, receiving rather moderate care and did not rust or fail in any other major way (one case of transmission failure in all these years is, quite frankly, forgivable).

I was in Germany the other day and stumbled upon a Lada showroom. I had no idea new Ladas were still being sold in the EU. Cosmetically the new range looks pretty good with a sub-Dacia price point, but when you see the small print for emissions and energy efficiency it's staggeringly bad news. Was also surprised that you can still buy brand new 4x4 Nivas but it's the same story with the filthly emissions unfortunately.

It must be my age, but as time has gone on, I find the Riva quite charming.So I'm either looking at it through rose tinted specs. [or cataracts], or new cars are getting blander, anonymous and, quite frankly, beige.

There used to be a Lada showroom in Chichester near where I used to live. Walked passed it everyday to go to school or shopping. So seeing this car has brought back loads of memories!

I love the rectangular Design and the noise! ❤️

Criticising the appearance of another car......while sitting in a Lada. lol. Just kidding, I really like the boxy, utilitarian styling of this, especially in estate form.

That's a great looking car. Perfect for my fishing gear!! Great vid.👏👏

My uncle got one new (saloon) and he was really chuffed with it. As a teen with an interest in cars I 'knew' it wasn't considered a good/appealing car, but he was chuffed and I was chuffed for him. Happy memories.

Liked the engine and interior video shoot. Keep this format going

The in car footage reminded me of driving a mk2 petrol Transit van, same stressed engine noises, same very vague steering. I used to get a lift to work in one, the guy who had it said it was like a truck to drive!!

The usual answer to where is the washer fluid going ...dripping through the headlining...eventually 🙄great video thanks

You brought me back to memory lane....as a child back in Greece I use to see a lot of them knocking around. Lada still exist in Greece. Very popular is it's 4x4 Niva. Very taught indeed

Yes, they did fuel inject the 2103 1.5l motor. They also equipped the 2104 with the fuel injected 21067i 1.6 motor in later years. Also they produced them with the 2107 bonnet and grille, bumpers and instrument panel (I own one with the 1.6i motor). Excellent cars. Edit: You can adjust the steering play by turning a nut on the steering box. Keep tightening until just before the steering goes tight, then make sure that the steering isn't tight at it's extremities (worn steering box). The suspension is designed for comfort on poorly maintained roads and not much else. Just keep an eye on the front lower ball joints. If they go, the suspension collapses. You can check wear by inserting the depth measure of a micrometer into the hole on the underside of the ball joint. If the depth is more than 11.8mm, it's time to change the ball joint. Good luck!

Enjoyed that. Would be great if you could find an FSO 125P to do a review on, and see how that compares to the Lada.

Of course this car was VERY dated even for 1980's nevertheless you also had Lada Samara, a FWD hatchback and the legendary Lada Niva.

I used two Ladas as taxis, during the 1980s. They were both excellent cars for taxiing. Simple and easy to maintain, they just kept going. Great cars!

I had an orange one. Drove it to Wales and back on the hottest day of the year. We started to count the broken down vehicles on the M4 and gave up when we reached 100. We kept rolling along. Mine had a big red light in the middle of the dashboard, wasn’t in the book and the local dealer had never seen one before so I took the bulb out.

Haha... Lada's.... I worked in a Lada dealership for 7 yrs... fun times... I liked them.... robust mechanicals, with a nice agricultural weight to everything.... What I really liked- cracking heaters, comfy seats and a good ride... very decent suspension.... The only real downside- the dreaded RUST.... :(

Mr Grandad had a riva .. same colour as this one! :D

I've been binge-watching your channel off and on all night. You seem to get your hands on such wonderfully weird cars that are way more interesting to me than expensive exotic stuff. Living in the US, a lot of these cars are even more odd to me because many of them were never sold here. Keep up the good work!

Had several Ladas - all ‘given’ to us. One died at 27K due to using a gallon of oil a month and the rear windows falling out. Another would lose the engine when indicating which was very entertaining :) this car also lost a sun visor as it had only one of the three screws holding it in. The best was a top of the range with the merc type grill and rear arm rest! Tuned when the idle screw fell out of the carb and replaced with a bolt with a 1 mm hole in it - putting a pin in the hole boosted power but had to be removed for MOT emissions! Brakes were shocking but sorted when some drunks tipped it on it’s side one night. The bounce when righted cured the brakes :) All were great in the snow. You can get a sump heater fitted for -40 degrees starting. Fantastic tool kits and I’m still using some of the tools. Best heater in the known universe as well 👍