Junkyard find and what kind of car is this

[dougfather]

So last Saturday, I went to Johnny's U Pull It here in Altoona (a new place). $2 to get in. Decent place, but unfortunately they have mostly stuff from the nineties. One G Body (80 Monte almost gone), a few F Bodies (V6 mostly) and a few B/C bodies. Anyway, i did mange to find a dual snorkel air cleaner (sitting i a back of a Camaor) and a Jeep Cherokee steering shaft.

Anyway, something unusual caught my eye in the "SUV" section.

I noticed the Russian letters in the air cleaner and a Canadian sticker on the window.

A little research on the web and discovered this is a Lada. How odd to see a Russian car in a central PA junkyard. Even the speedo was in km/h.

 

[Longroof79]

Holy smokes!! I can't say that I've ever seen a Rusky vehicle in the U.S. before...dead or alive. How unusual.

I did see a 4-dr Holden sedan, right hand drive, low to the ground. This guy blew by me like I was standing still. I thought it was some kind of j* junk being that it was RHD. But then realized it was a good ole' Australian GM car.
The ultimate sleeper.

 

[itsnotanova]

Thats cool. I would love to see their build quality.

 

[clean8485]

Its a Lada Niva. Ladas were sold in Canada from the early 1980s to approximately the mid 1990s. There were several different models. Their main model was a small sedan that was patterned after the Fiat 128. The Niva was their small sport untility vehicle. A friend of mine was collecting them for awhile. He found them to be a handier off road vehicle than most because of its small size. I believe that its actually a bit smaller than a Geo Tracker, and definitely smaller than a Jeep CJ. The Ladas never really caught on up here-the cars were cheap to buy, but the quality wasn't great, and the dealer network was small.

 

[upandaway84]

Any ideas as to engine type and power output?

 

[Minion1186]

a lada in pa? wow haha

watch topgears communist vehicles episode on the build quality of these things.

 

[dougfather]

According to wikipedia, a 1.6 litre OHC 4 engine, some places in the world could have had a 1.9 Diesel Peugot. Apparently, this was one of their first non-Fiat based cars.