55 years later: we celebrate the anniversary of the VAZ-2101 in Lada Iskra

April 19, 1970. Togliatti. The first trial specimens of the VAZ-2101 go from the conveyor of the Volga automobile plant. The legendary “penny” will be released until 1988, and in 2025, exactly 55 years after the “Lada”, the Togliatti plant will begin the production of Spark. Coincidence? Of course not. The date for AvtoVAZ is certainly important, therefore it is marked on a grand scale. And what could be more sweeping more than the launch of the serial production of the new “folk car”?

To begin with, a small excursion into history. It is no secret that the first Lada wanted to show for a special date-the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, which the whole country, then the USSR, was preparing to celebrate on April 22, 1970. The trial assembly of six cars was completed on the night of April 19. The red and blue “pennies” symbolized the flag of the RSFSR, although according to legend, the Italians insisted on white, red and green – the colors of the Italian flag. Alas, not one of those cars survived to this day – and probably only the factory workers themselves saw them. All six were used to check the reliability of weld points and seams, and the earliest preserved instance of the VAZ-2101 is the car under number 38 (it can be seen in the title photograph).

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The Volzhsky Automobile Plant completed the transition to mass production in a matter of months: by August 1970, 70 cars were produced in Togliatti daily! The first buyer of Kopeyka was the employee of the local Volgammamash enterprise, and after 19 years the car sold to him returned to the factory as a museum exhibit (one of the first serial Lada ISKRA, on the body of which the names of all employees of the enterprise as of January 2025, was also sent to the AvtoVAZ Museum). In 1971, the VAZ-2101 began to export to Yugoslavia, Belgium, Holland and Finland under the name LADA 1200-and then the “Unit” starred in her first film, the film comedy “Gentlemen of Good luck”.

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Even today, the model remains a symbol of the era, albeit created on the basis of Fiat 124 (1966–1974). Over 800 changes were introduced into the initial design of the “European car of the year” (1967), including the body, revised the kinematics of pendants and installed a more promising from the point of view of the design of the upper engine. There were enough differences in the cabin – for example, an original combination of devices and seats with a “fiat” mechanism of laying out the back of the “fiat”. In just 18 years, 4.8 million of all modifications of the VAZ-2101 were released, which made it the most mass model in the history of AvtoVAZ.

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The new Lada Iskra in a sense repeats the path of the predecessor. Initially, the car was built on the French CMF-B platform, more precisely, its simplest version with the prefix LS (Low Specification), designed for cars of the lower price segment-such as the “third” Dacia Logan, Duster, Bigster and Renault Taliant. However, after Renault left Russia, AvtoVAZ had to urgently upgrade the “cart” and make it technically independent. The result is more than 1000 new and 400 modernized components.

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The depth of the localization of the “sparks” exceeds 90 percent, and it is directly borrined in Vesta for some solutions. These are also elements of the chassis, brake system, electronic architecture, controls and so on. Even before the start of industrial production, about a hundred prototypes were collected. They were rolled up at the landfill, public roads, including mountain and northern regions, drove into an aerodynamic pipe, an amchy and aeroclimatic chambers and, of course, beat in crash tests. The ISKRA security level exceeds Russian standards and is comparable not only with Vesta, but also with the Foreign Code of the segment B. The assembly was organized on the Granta line, and the engineers even had to change some of its stages to wedge into the conveyor as efficiently as possible.

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ISKRA will be released in several performance: sedan, station wagon and cross-universal. The model looks like a reduced Vesta, with characteristic attributes of X-style like side stamping and chrome “boomerangs” on the front bumper. One of the sources of inspiration is called the Lada Xcode concept. In the gamut of the engines, “atmospheric” 1.6 (90 hp and 143 nm; 106 hp and 148 nm) are familiar from other models Lada with five-/six-speed “mechanics” or variator (the last two boxes go with new calibers). The sedan and the station wagon can be ordered with any power unit, while the CROSS station wagon will be offered only with the senior engine.

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The dynamics and consumption depend on the choice of the engine ligament and the transmission (all the data is indicated for the sedan). The slowest in acceleration of up to 100 kilometers per hour will be ISKRA with a variator – it will take 13.4 seconds. One tenth wins a sedan with a 90-horsepower engine and “mechanics”, which for exactly a second lags behind a 106-horsepower modification with a Chinese six-speed gearbox. The maximum speed is 170 or 175 kilometers per hour.

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According to the passport, Iskra spends 7.2–7.8 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers. The fuel tank is designed for 50 liters. The road clearance is also known – 170 millimeters of the sedan and 200 in the station wagon, and the volume of the trunk is 500 and 480 liters, respectively. It provides for hooks for fastening the grid, a compartment for a five -liter container and an organizer in the niche of the spare tire. Standard equipment includes two frontal airbags, front belts with pretense and effort limiters, ERA-GLONASS button, course stability system and a function of touches on the rise. All glazing is athermal, with a degree of tinting 25 percent.

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For ISKRA, the steering wheel will be available, its adjustment in height and departure, the rear view camera, air conditioning and the “winter” bag with heated all seats, steering wheel, windshield and washer nozzles. In addition, the equipment list includes fog lights with turning turns, rear parking sensors, multimedia with a diagonal of eight inches, support for Yandex services and an audio system with four speakers. Innovations – tire pressure control, which even Vesta does not have, unlocking the gas tank from the cabin and a lighting fluid level sensor.

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Production capacities allow you to produce up to 150 thousand “sparks” per year, but the actual volumes will be calculated taking into account the real needs of the market. The start of sales will be given approximately in the summer, however, dealers have already begun to collect pre -orders. Moreover, there are still no prices, only the approximate fork is 1.2–1.3 million rubles for the initial version, voiced by the head of AvtoVAZ, Maxim Sokolov, which puts ISKRA between Granta and Vesta. In the future, the new flagship (not in the sense of the most expensive model, but rather the most modern) will replace Grant, but when this will happen and whether it will happen at all, no one will say now – the “state employee” will remain in the ranks while there is a buyer.

Remember, at the very beginning, we mentioned that the “spark” would not be the only new car new car this year. A few months later, the Premiere of another model – the Lada B+ Cross crossover will take place at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. He uses the modernized Vesta platform and already in 2026 will become serial, taking the flagship title from the Spark. /m

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