It has been kept factory-fresh for nearly half a century, but is it worth paying Lamborghini money for a Lada?
“I know what I’ve got…”
Forget barn finds, this factory-fresh Lada Niva offered for sale in Russia is more of a ‘museum find’.
Originally built in 1980 at the height of the Cold War, the bright-red off-roader has been kept in pristine condition for 43 years and has just 220km on its odometer. The seller, in the Russian city of Togliatti where the Lada factory is located, notes the seats are still covered by the factory plastic seal and the Niva presents in “time capsule” condition.
It is, in almost every way, a brand-new car but with one huge catch … the price.
Considering you can still buy a Lada Niva brand new in Russia for ₽821,900 ($AU15,000), this seems a little high, even for a collectible one.
The Lada Niva has been in production since 1977 and has remained largely unchanged to this day. About 2.5 million Lada Nivas have been built with almost 700,000 of these exported to 100 markets around the world, including briefly to Australia.
While we love the idea of a spotlessly clean Lada Niva, we’re sure that somewhere in those 2.5 million examples there’s another, reasonably clean one, for a fraction of the price.
