Considering the assortment of strange vehicles that came out of Soviet Russia, it shouldn't come as a surprise some of the promotional pictures used to advertise these cars were also a little weird.
We recently came across a collection of odd Russian advertising pictures on EnglishRussia and had to share a few of our favorites. Most were promotional photos taken with intention of appealing to foreign export markets.
Although the desire to expand your market is natural in any business, we like ER's theory that Russians quickly caught on to how terrible some of these cars were. Similar to most of the Russian vehicles shown themselves these pictures are very outdated and rather amusing. Even so, they're still somewhat convincing in an odd way.
We imagine the ability to attract blonde women on horses wherever you went would almost make owning an Izh Combi bearable. Driving a UAZ 469 through the water looks like fun—at least until it stops running. Perhaps most appealing is the UAZ 2269. We aren't sure why, but after spending a few minutes staring at it sitting on the docks we kind of want one.
Perhaps this strange vintage Russian advertising is more effective than it seems.
[Visualhistory via EnglishRussia]
UAZ 469
UAZ 2269
GAZ 24
GAZ 24
Lada 1500
Lada Niva
RAF-977 Latvia
RAF-2203