68 Lada Valiant
So now that i have my valiant wagon running but not so much driving because the brakes are horrible, im about to do the right thing and start another project.
So why the title "Lada Valiant? Those who know me might know of my love for the Russian made car known as a the Lada Riva. I absolutely love the Lada Riva which was made as a 4 door economy car for the streets of Russia. They were made through an agreement between the Russian Government and Fiat motors, which ended shortly after the fall of the soviet union. They most commonly had around 2 liters of Fiat power and they ALL had manual transmissions. Communist engineering dictated that the cars be built with utmost economy in mind and the Lada was the definition of basic transportation which is the simplicity i like in all my cars including my mopars.
So I had bought a 1989 Lada 2107 which was the car i always wanted. However there was a huge problem with the car, it was a basket case and needed a lot of parts that are simply not available in middle America. Soviet cars are already VERY rare in the USA and UK these days, so scoring parts that go for very small money in Russia and Soviet satellites get huge money in USA ...IF you can find them!! Importing a used Lada is also not a cost effective option because a car that would be worth 1000 bucks overseas could cost up to 20 grand to import it in through Seattle and get all the paperwork sorted and get it all translated and converted to a Colorado title.
So one day it hit me when i was reading an article published in Russia regarding the Lada Riva and the author wrote "the Americans made a similar looking car in the 60s, called the Plymouth valiant, however their car was oversized as everything else in capitalist USA"
So I accepted my defeat and determined that it would never cost effective nor worth the effort to build a soviet relic for use in middle America and so the Lada Valiant is born. I sold the Lada to someone in the very small American Lada community as a parts car which was a sad day for me and decided to build my own interpretation of a Lada Valiant.
I bought this 68 valiant from another member and it fits the bill completely due to its very basic trim and lack of options....just like the ol 2107.
It's going to stay a slant six car with a 3 speed manual transmission and be the worlds first valiant set up slav style. When shopping for a valiant to replace the lada i ran into a 2 door valiant but in order to be my lada valiant, it MUST be a 4 door, so this is perfect.
This is going to probably be a slow build because i dont have much car time these days.
So now that i have my valiant wagon running but not so much driving because the brakes are horrible, im about to do the right thing and start another project.
So why the title "Lada Valiant? Those who know me might know of my love for the Russian made car known as a the Lada Riva. I absolutely love the Lada Riva which was made as a 4 door economy car for the streets of Russia. They were made through an agreement between the Russian Government and Fiat motors, which ended shortly after the fall of the soviet union. They most commonly had around 2 liters of Fiat power and they ALL had manual transmissions. Communist engineering dictated that the cars be built with utmost economy in mind and the Lada was the definition of basic transportation which is the simplicity i like in all my cars including my mopars.
So I had bought a 1989 Lada 2107 which was the car i always wanted. However there was a huge problem with the car, it was a basket case and needed a lot of parts that are simply not available in middle America. Soviet cars are already VERY rare in the USA and UK these days, so scoring parts that go for very small money in Russia and Soviet satellites get huge money in USA ...IF you can find them!! Importing a used Lada is also not a cost effective option because a car that would be worth 1000 bucks overseas could cost up to 20 grand to import it in through Seattle and get all the paperwork sorted and get it all translated and converted to a Colorado title.
So one day it hit me when i was reading an article published in Russia regarding the Lada Riva and the author wrote "the Americans made a similar looking car in the 60s, called the Plymouth valiant, however their car was oversized as everything else in capitalist USA"
So I accepted my defeat and determined that it would never cost effective nor worth the effort to build a soviet relic for use in middle America and so the Lada Valiant is born. I sold the Lada to someone in the very small American Lada community as a parts car which was a sad day for me and decided to build my own interpretation of a Lada Valiant.
I bought this 68 valiant from another member and it fits the bill completely due to its very basic trim and lack of options....just like the ol 2107.
It's going to stay a slant six car with a 3 speed manual transmission and be the worlds first valiant set up slav style. When shopping for a valiant to replace the lada i ran into a 2 door valiant but in order to be my lada valiant, it MUST be a 4 door, so this is perfect.
This is going to probably be a slow build because i dont have much car time these days.
