Konstantinos Tzoannopoulos

VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part Three)

Debunking the persistent legend of Russo-Italian rust.

Fiat’s cooperation in the establishment of the VAZ factory, along with Alexei Kosygin’s new policies⁽¹⁾, helped mobilize the Soviet citizenry en masse. With the quite excellent Fiat 124 as a basis, the end-product was arguably a better car to own and drive than anything offered by ZAZ⁽²⁾, AZLK⁽³⁾ or GAZ⁽⁴⁾at the time.

The establishment of the VAZ factory was, as we now know, politically motivated⁽¹⁾. For the Soviet government at least, the project was a major success: they took a good initial design and successfully adapted it to their country’s conditions and needs. They even sold it successfully in export markets. For the Italians, though, things played out somewhat differently: Continue reading “VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part Three)”

VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part Two)

Fiat’s Soviet project faces politically-charged setbacks.

The first VAZ 2101. Image: vadim/Wikimedia Commons

No one could ever accuse Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, of lacking confidence in his own power or in the power of his office and country. Quite the contrary, as Greece’s ambassador found out in 1964, when Johnson told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of the smaller nation’s sovereignty⁽¹⁾. Yet, a persistent feature in US and US-aligned political discourse proved to be a double-edged sword for him: the words ‘Russia’, ‘Soviet Union’, ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ were and remain veritable berserk buttons⁽²⁾ for legions of politicians, pundits, and voters on the right of the political spectrum. This sort of sentiment, of course, is not unique to US political discourse, but it remained especially acute, even more than a decade after the McCarthyite purges of the late 1940s and early 1950s, which created near-hysteria at the time.

When such sentiment is prevalent in a society, it is easy for certain factions to Continue reading “VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part Two)”

VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part One)

Investigating the overlooked and unexplored history of VAZ.

VAZ (in Russian: ВАЗ)⁽¹⁾ is well known in the automotive world. It was established in 1966 as a joint-venture between the Soviet Union and Fiat to mass-produce affordable, reliable, and technologically relevant family cars for the Soviet people⁽²⁾. Its first product was the VAZ-2101 Zhiguli saloon⁽³⁾, a more rugged version of the Fiat 124, adapted to cope with the adverse conditions of the USSR. The Zhiguli was so successful that VAZ/AvtoVAZ would become the country’s largest car manufacturer.

Much has already been written about both the Zhiguli, which was exported under the Lada (Russian: Лада) brand, and its maker. Here on DTW you can enjoy features on both the Zhiguli⁽⁴⁾ and the factory in Tolyatti⁽⁵⁾ where it was built, written by my fellow contributors Sean Patrick and Andrew Miles respectively. There are, however, unexplored and unreported details of the history of VAZ. This is precisely what we will attempt to bring to light in this three-part series, primarily by examining the US State Department’s historical archives. Specifically, we will examine the politics and the diplomacy behind the establishment of the Soviet automaker.

Astonishingly, these behind-the-scenes details seem to Continue reading “VAZ: Diplomacy, Politics, and Urban Legends (Part One)”

The Phantom Joint Venture – Part Three

CX and Gamma – Separated at Birth or Perfect Strangers?

*The Pininfarina 1800 Aerodynamica prototype from 1967: its styling and packaging influenced 1970s Citroëns and Lancias.* Credit: photo-voiture.motorlegend

In the third and final part of this series, we examine whether the CX and the Gamma were mechanically and technologically related at any point in their histories, and what – if any – politics, corporate or otherwise, affected their development paths.

Both the CX and the Gamma sported raked, low-profile, two-box, four-door, front-wheel drive fastback sedan designs with a Kamm tail, which, however, is not a hatchback. Someone with only a passing interest in cars could easily Continue reading “The Phantom Joint Venture – Part Three”

The Phantom Joint Venture – Part Two

Could a joint venture between Citroën and Lancia possibly have been on the cards, especially before they briefly shared a roof under Fiat?

After the discontinuation of the iconic Aurelia and its smaller sisters, Lancia spent the 1960s seeking a broader audience and larger profits. However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Credit: motoristorici

Trouble in Turin…

Under Gianni Lancia, the Italian firm ran a costly racing program that gobbled up whatever profit its modest sales brought. Its cars were expensive to begin with, aiming squarely at the upper echelons of Italian society. In the post-war context, Lancia’s export efforts were always hampered, and not just by the high import taxes of the era: its cars, for all their mechanical refinement and excellent driving experience, had a niche appeal, which eluded the majority of the newly-emerging (or re-emerging) affluent potential customers. Too many of them viewed Lancias as too expensive for their body size, engine displacement, horsepower, and acceleration. Plus, they wanted something far more flamboyant. Clearly, the times had changed, and so had buyers’ tastes.

Lancia’s new boss, Carlo Pesenti^[7] of Italcementi fame, gave Dr. Antonio Fessia^[8] the go-ahead to Continue reading “The Phantom Joint Venture – Part Two”

The Phantom Joint Venture – Part One

In this series, we examine a persistent bit of car lore involving French President Charles de Gaulle and two beautiful, yet flawed cars: the Lancia Gamma and Citroën CX.

Image: auto55.be

lanciagamma.altervista.org

As a kid, a teenager and, later on, young adult, I had very little interest in sports, and my artistic talents were pretty much non-existent. So, I looked to car publications for a source of inspiration. Impressed as I was by the detailed reviews and technical columns that contained a wealth of information that would be considered taboo today, I confess I took pretty much everything written there at face value. This applied not only to the reviews themselves, but to other sections of those magazines – from the ones that dabbled in automotive history to the ones where the contributors unfolded their political wisdom.

This exposed me to a non-trivial amount of rather dubious narratives that were (and some still are) presented as some sort of indisputable truth. For instance, in my teens I genuinely believed the major car publications’ narrative about a leftist conspiracy led by evil trade unionists and the hard-left populists of PASOK^[1]‘ and aided by the ‘unpatriotic communists^[2] that aimed to Continue reading “The Phantom Joint Venture – Part One”

Second Failure

With Marchionne at Fiat’s helm, corners were cut at Lancia. Yet, the company indulged in a pointless, bandwagon-jumping, and failed marketing drive in Second Life.

The 2008 Lancia Delta in real life. Image: autocentrum

I thought the gross mismanagement of Lancia at the hands of Fiat had been exhaustively detailed, both here and in other corners of the internet. Recently, though, I spoke with an old friend from my university years, who like me, owns a third-generation Delta^[1]. It had been a while since we last spoke, so our Skype call lasted a while, as we talked about all manner of things – from our family lives and our jobs to the things that interested us back then.

One of those things was Linden Lab’s once-overhyped, but now largely forgotten 3D, sandbox-style, virtual world named Second Life^[2] (SL for short). As young, wide-eyed PhD candidates looking to explore the capabilities of contemporary virtual reality platforms for collaborative design and simulation, we had both dabbled with it. Seeking to attract investors looking for a quick buck, LL’s founder and CEO Philip Rosedale made extremely bold claims about how SL would Continue reading “Second Failure”