As far as weird moments go, this was a biggy. Having dotted the 'i's and crossed the 't's on the recent
Lada Niva Shed of the Week
story (being uncharacteristically organised, I had got it written on Thursday afternoon before it 'going live' on the Friday), what should I spot as I wandered through the PH office car park? A Lada Niva.
'That's shiny', I thought, not to mention a weird coincidence. Then I clocked the 10-plate registration, meaning this relic of the Cold War had to be no more 18 months old. Curious. As it turned out, this car was being tested by sister publications What Car? and Autocar, because the car is currently being imported by Mark Key.
Given that we had chosen to feature one of its elderly cousins as SOTW, we thought we'd ask if we could have a go, too. It looked fun. In a weird sort of way.
So, apart from the novelty value of having a Russian SUV to tool about in, what do you get for your £10,974? (For that is what you will have to part with to get a brand new one). Not a lot, is the honest answer Airbags? Nope. ABS? Likewise. Carpets? Ha. Radio? Nyet. Central locking? Take a wild guess...
What you do get is a low-ratio gearbox, full-time 4wd, a centre-locking differential, and decent approach, departure and breakover angles; put some suitable tyres on and this can make quite a decent mud-plugger.
But as a car out in the cut-and-thrust of the modern world the Niva stands out as, well, frankly rubbish. The power-assisted steering is light but vague, the 80bhp 1.7-litre petrol motor has a surprising amount of mid-range energy but quickly becomes horrendously raucous as you begin to extend it, and the gearbox is most charitably described as clunky. In its defence, however, we will admit that it has a nicer ride than a an SWB Landie.
The driving position, meanwhile, is woeful, unless you are lucky enough to be one of the small range of shapes suitable to fit the fixed steering wheel and limited range of seat adjustment. And don't get us started on the build quality (a couple of folks who drove it thought it smelled of petrol, but we think it's actually the heady odour of pound-shop-grade plastics).
The real sticking point, however, is what you could get instead. If you need a properly utilitarian off-roader, you only need look at a four-year-old Land Rover Defender, while if you want a brand-new (and far more modern) 4x4 with rough-stuff credentials a Suzuki Jimny can be yours for £11,905.
Having said that, Mark Key is not selling Nivas in huge numbers (he's shifted around 20 examples in the past 12 months), and we're sure there are more than enough people out there to snap up those sorts of numbers. It's just that, as a sub-£1k hack Shed, the Niva works; as a brand new car in the 21st century it really doesn't.