Let me tell you, this epic battle is gonna make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a kiddie squabble at the day-care center! Will Soviet-made Fiat technology triumph over 4,500 pounds of very rusty Detroit iron? Let's take a look at the combatants:

Otherwise known as the VAZ-2107, the Fiat 124-based Lada Signet was available in Canada right up through the end of the Cold War, so our own Comrade Teargaskov went up to Canada and brought back a running $200 example. This team isn't messing around; they've got a PA system in the car to crank the Hymn Of The Soviet People on the track, no doubt intimidating the other racers with the indomitable spirit of the revolutionary cadres, in addition to all the requisite red flags, hammer-and-sickle emblems, and the coolest 1921-in-Leningrad-style car numbers we've ever seen. Here's a little video that shows how seriously Total Loss Racing is taking this thing. The Lada is a simple, sturdy rear-wheel-drive machine and might rack up a lot of laps over the course of the weekend. Oh, did I mention that this race is a true 24-straight-hours event, with no overnight break to fix busted cars?

Now, when we heard that a Lada would be racing, we figured that nothing on earth could possibly challenge a Soviet car for the Index Of Effluency. Then Team Police Brutality (whose Lincoln Continental Mark VIII was one of the fastest cars at LeMons South) picked up a terrifyingly wretched '61 Cadillac sedan about two weeks ago… and figured that they had plenty of time to get it ready to race. No, really! Crazy as it sounds, they've got it most of the way there; the roll cage is installed, the engine runs, and the brakes are, uh, awaiting completion. The reason for all the urgency is that Team Police Brutality is racing to raise money to beat up breast cancer, LAPD style, and they're getting backers to pledge a buck per lap completed during the race to Susan G. Komen For The Cure. Want to join those backers? Go here and sign up! The question is, how many laps can a drum-brake-equipped rustmobile that hasn't budged for decades complete? More than the Lada? We'll find out next weekend!

Naturally, we need to make a contest out of this battle, with fabulous prizes from LeMons HQ for the winner. To enter, just put the number of laps you think each car will finish in a comment below. The course is about two miles long and the race will go a full 24 hours, so the faster cars that run the whole time might get 600+ laps. These two cars aren't going to be so fast, and they will almost certainly might fall apart experience some technical difficulties on the track… but you never know! Win the contest and LeMons HQ will send you some shirts that they can't get anyone to buy at the races cool 24 Hours Of LeMons swag!



Total Loss Racing's 1987 Lada Signet


Team Police Brutality - Beating Up Breast Cancer's 1961 Cadillac Series 62

Even 20 years is a long, long time in automotive-design years, and so we've established that as the cutoff for this list. We're not talking about model names that have been around forever (e.g., Crown Victoria, Century, Bluebird), but a particular chassis/generation of a car that remained fundamentally unchanged over its lifespan. We're not including light trucks, mostly because it's damn near impossible to sort out Soviet military stuff. Obviously, a lot of quasi-arbitrary judgment calls had to be made with some of the candidates- does a different engine or totally restyled body make for a distinct vehicle?- and so we're confident that we've provided something to enrage every one of you, be it a car that totally qualified that we blew off or a totally undeserving car that we sneaked into the list. For example, were there differences between the first few generations of the Ford Fiesta sufficient to make that car ineligible for this list? We said yes, which Fiesta zealots will no doubt consider to be fatwa-grade heresy. In any case, we've probably made some mistakes, and we've definitely missed some cars that belonged on the list. Fire away with the hate mail, by all means!

Things get somewhat sticky when it comes to Fiats built outside of Italy. We think the Polski Fiat 125p shouldn't get lumped in with either the Fiat 125 or the Fiat 1300/1500, it being a cost-cutting mashup of the two, so we're giving this 24-year veteran its own place of honor in the Jalopnik Cars Of Immortality Hall Of Fame. Likewise, by the time VAZ got around to the VAZ-2107 (aka Lada Riva), its design had diverged sufficiently from its Fiat 124 ancestry that we consider it and the 124 to be separate cars. You 124 fanatics don't need to fret about that outrage, though- thanks to production in India and Egypt, the 124 doesn't need the later Ladas to nail down 31 years.

You may have noted the conspicuous shortage of American machinery in this list; other than the first-gen Ford Falcon (built in Argentina until the 1990s) and the Checker Marathon, there were no easy calls to be made for American manufacturers. We've included the rear-wheel-drive GM T Body, because of the bewildering swarm of Kadetts, Chevettes, I-Marks, and low-production South American clones that flew forth from that design; we're saying 21 years for the T, and you're free to argue your guts out about it. How about the GM B platform, which stayed in service from the '61 Buick Invicta to the '96 Chevy Caprice? The General performed nearly half a dozen major redesigns of the B platform over the decades, and not enough components interchange between one B generation and the next for it to be considered the same car for 20 solid years. Same goes for the Ford Panther platform (1979-present) and the hordes of Chrysler K derivatives (eternity). The Model T was only made for 19 years, so it doesn't make the list (unless someone can dig up some proof that it was being bootlegged in the Maldives), nor does the Willys Aero, even with all those years of production in Brazil. What really broke our hearts was the Rambler American/Renault Torino, which almost made the list at 18 years of production in Wisconsin and Argentina (we were looking for loopholes to prove that the '64 Rambler American was actually a cosmetic facelift of an earlier version, but no dice).

This project got really challenging when we got to Chinese-built versions of Japanese and Korean cars. The line between "facelifted license-built copy" and "based on heavily modified chassis design" gets increasingly blurry in China, and most likely we've overlooked a couple of 20+ year Chinese versions of Mazdas or Suzukis. Chinese Volkswagens were a lot easier to figure out, but how about Malaysian Mitsubishi clones- or are they clones?- sold in China? Ai-ya!

Here we go, fifty cars that were built for 20 years or longer, as close as we could get to the right order:

Volkswagen Type 1
65 years (1938-2003)
The Beetle was built in Germany from 1938 through 1980, which would have put it in second place on our list, behind the Mini but just in front of the 2CV. However, production in Brazil (1950-1996) and Mexico (1955-2003) gives the little Ferdinand Porsche-designed ass-engine air-cooler a whopping 22-year-edge over the Mini.

Morris Oxford / Hindustan Ambassador
55 years (1954-present)
The case could be made that the previous generation of the Oxford, which debuted in 1948, was similar enough to the '54 that the Oxford/Ambassador deserves 61 years instead of 55. However, the Amby is still being made! That means the much-beloved little Indian car has a shot at catching the Beetle. Engines have come and gone (the '09 Amby has Isuzu power), but the essential Oxford-ness of the car remains.

Austin Mini
43 years (1957-2000)
An Old Mini with airbags? Yes, the car that started the front-wheel-drive/hatchback revolution managed to stay relevant into the current century. Park one of these next to one of those BMW-built imitators and you'll see what a small car really looks like!

Citroën 2CV
41 years (1949-1990)
How much power does a car really need? Ask a Citroën engineer in the late 40s and he'd tell you: nine horsepower! Later models had nearly four times that, with 33 horses being the max from the factory. Of course, some had a little more than that when they went racing. Nearly four million were made.

Fiat 128 / Zastava Skala / Nasr 128 / SEAT 128
40 years (1969-present)
How many versions of the groundbreaking front-driver 128 are out there? Why, even Enzo Ferrari drove one! In addition to being a huge hit in Europe, where it was built until 1985, Zastava continues to build 128s (branded as the Zastava 55) to this day; as of last year, you could still get an Egyptian-made Nasr 128.

Austin FX4
39 years (1958-1997)
We can't include the Checker Marathon in this list without also including the most iconic of the old London Black Cabs. The FX4 was built by different manufacturers over the years and went through quite a few engines, but it remained essentially the same vehicle. Two Austins in the Top Ten!
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Fiat 1100 / Premier Padmini
38 years (1962-2000)
Clearly, the key to getting your car built for a few extra decades is to make Indian buyers love it. As the Fiat 1100, this car was done in Italy by 1969, but India's Premier Automobiles Limited kept on making the 1100 (badged as the Padmini) until 2000.
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Hillman Hunter / Iran Khodro Paykan
37 years (1967-2004)
Hey, Rootes Group machinery survived into the 21st century! The Paykan got Peugeot power eventually, but it remained a Hillman at heart. Paykan production equipment was sold to a Sudanese company a few years back, though we've had no news so far of any gleaming new Paykans being built there. Wait a couple of decades and we may see the Paykan hang in there to beat the Beetle's longevity record!
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Peugeot 504
37 years (1968-2005)
The 504 was built for 15 years in France, then continued production in Argentina until 1999. Africans still loved the 504 after that, with production continuing in Kenya (2004) and Nigeria (2005). Don't be shocked if someone starts building the 504 once again.

Renault 12 / Dacia 1300
37 years (1969-2006)
The 12 was yet another Renault success story, with production on five continents and millions sold. The last Renault-branded 12 was built in Turkey in 1999, but Romanian automaker Dacia made the 12-clone Dacia 1300/1310 until just a few years ago.
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Fiat 131 / SEAT 131 / Tofaş Murat 131
35 years (1974-present)
Also known as the Brava and Mirafiori, the 131 had ten years of Italian production, then lived on in Spain, Turkey, and now Ethiopia.
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Volkswagen Golf Mk1
35 years (1974-present)
Yes, you can still buy the first version of the biggest-selling VW car since the air-cooled Beetle! South Africans love the Mk1 Golf so much that they've been making them since 1974.

Renault 4
33 years (1961-1994)
Usually, a Renault made for more than 30 years indicates that some Warsaw Pact nation built it under license for a couple of decades past the point of relevance in the home market. Not so with the 4! Intended as competition for the hugely successful Citroën 2CV, the Renault 4 outlived its rival by four years.
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Moskvitch 408/412
33 years (1964-1997)
You'll have to pick up the definitive guide to Soviet cars to get the whole Moskvitch 408 story, but here's one fun fact: when the hard-currency-strapped Soviet Union started importing Moskvitches to the UK, the price tag for this fairly substantial car was £22 less than the tiny Mini. Including cars made by the Izhevsk Mechanical Works, the 408/412 stayed in production until the late 1990s.

Ford Falcon (first generation)
31 years (1960-1991)
Imagine going to a Ford dealership and having a choice between a new Sierra XR4i and a new '62 Falcon. That's how it went down in Argentina, where facelifted but still recognizable first-generation Falcons were made until 1991. You could even get a diesel Falcon! We're just disappointed that Ford Of Argentina didn't keep building the '69 Fairlane fastback into the 1990s.

Peugeot 404
31 years (1960-1991)
Kenyan production kept the 404 (car of choice for Ho Chi Minh) going for extra decades.
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Fiat 124 / VAZ-2101 Lada / SEAT 124 / Tofaş Murat 124 / Premier 118NE
31 years (1966-1984, 1986-2001)
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Renault 5 / SAIPA Sepand
30 years (1972-2000)
We North Americans knew the 5 as the Le Car; we missed out on the goofy European 5 ads but we did get some cheezy ones of our own. European production halted in 1996, when the last Slovenian 5 left the assembly line, but Iranian carmaker SAIPA made the 5 (badged as the Sepand) until 2000.
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Vauxhall Victor FE / Hindustan Contessa
30 years (1972-2002)
We could probably stretch the ancestry of the Contessa back another couple of generations of Vauxhall Victors, but 30 years is pretty good. Do the owners of Contessas, with their early-70s British styling, look down on the Ambassador drivers stuck with 40s British design?
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Fiat 126 / Polski Fiat 126p
28 years (1972-2000)
The original Italian-built 126 made it to 1980, but fortunate Polish buyers could get the Polski Fiat version for another 20 years.
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Zastava Koral / Yugo
28 years (1980-2008)
Is this car really a Fiat 128? We think the Koral (aka Yugo) differs enough from its progenitor, and has sufficient history of its own, to merit its own entry in our all-time survivors' list.

Volkswagen Passat Mk2 / Santana
28 years (1981-present)
Is the Mk2 Passat close enough to the Mk1 to move the start date back to 1973? We say it's not. As long as the Chinese keep building Santanas, however, the second-gen Passat will keep moving up in the ranks.

Alfa Romeo Spider
27 years (1966-1993)
Will Alfa freaks be proud that this design stayed in front-line service for so long, or splutter about the changes that "modernized" their car over the years?

GAZ-3102 Volga
27 years (1982-present)
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VAZ-2107 / Lada Riva
27 years (1982-present)
We'll be seeing one of these at the 24 Hours Of LeMons next month!
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Checker Marathon
26 years (1956-1982)
Many different engines, but the Marathon stayed the same.

Mitsubishi Lancer (3rd gen) / Proton Saga
25 years (1983-2008)
How much of the Lancer Fiore remains in today's Saga? Nearly all of it, apparently. Note: the image depicts the non-Lancer-based '09 Saga.
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Daihatsu Charade / FAW Xiali TJ7101
26 years (1983-present)
See how much useful information you can extract from the FAW website about this fine automobile, then let us know if we were totally wrong in assuming that it's still a Charade.
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Fiat Uno
26 years (1983-present)
The Uno was made all over the world, but Brazil is the last Uno holdout, building sedan and wagon versions.
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Porsche 911
25 years (1964-1989)
Was the 911 essentially the same car until the 964 version? Quite a tough call; if we exclude the 911 from the list, we'll be fending off a rain of Molotov cocktails from enraged Porsche fanatics who feel left out. Including it will make many of those same fanatics mail us some Unabomber-style packages, since we're implying that the 911 hasn't always been at the very leading edge of performance-car technology. We decided that sufficient parts interchange between '64 and '89 models to get the 911 on this list.

Fiat 127
25 years (1971-1996)
The Argentinean version of the 127-based Fiat 147 wagon continued until 1996, 16 years after Fiat stopped building the car in Italy.
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Lada Samara
25 years (1984-present)
There's no Fiat content in the all-Russian Samara, and you can still buy yourself one! After the end of the Soviet Union, the Samara got some pretty entertaining commercials.

Volkswagen Jetta Mk 2
25 years (1984-present)
You can still buy the second-gen Jetta in China, where the car is badged as the Jetta King.

Polski Fiat 125p
24 years (1967-1991)
Not really a Fiat 125 (the suspension is from the 1300), we say the 125p is a separate model.
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FSO Polonez
24 years (1978-2002)
It's a Polski Fiat 125p under the skin, but we think the Giorgetto Giugiaro body and variety of engine choices make it a different car.
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Jaguar XJ6 Mk1
24 years (1968-1992)
The original XJ6 was just so good that no major redesigns were needed for those 24 years.

Citroën Traction-Avant
23 years (1934-1957)
The oldest car on this list, the Traction-Avant was so far ahead of its time in the 1930s that it stayed relevant into the Jet Age.

Morris Minor
23 years (1948-1971)

ZAZ-968 Zaporozhets
22 years (1972-1994)
Depending on how you interpret model changes and upgrades, the air-cooled "Soviet Corvair" might qualify for moving up in the ranks of this list... or being dropped from it. Try not to roll it over, comrades!
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Tatra 613
22 years (1974-1996)
Hooray, a Tatra made the list!
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Mazda 121 / Kia Pride / Saipa Pride / Ford Festiva
22 years (1987-present)
Talk about your confusing cascade of captive imports and badge engineering! We're pretty sure that some variety of this car has been in production since 1987.

Peugeot 405
22 years (1987-present)
Peugeot stopped making the 405 in France in 1997, but Iran Khodro continues to build them to this day.

Citroën DS
21 years (1955-1976)
Another example of a car so ahead of its time that Citroën could keep selling it for decades. Too bad the Goddess was so complex; otherwise someone would still be building the DS.

Austin-Healey Sprite / MG Midget
21 years (1958-1979)
Not much about the Spridget changed over its lifetime, other than the addition of big black plastic bumpers and the subtraction of horsepower. Oh, sure, the bug eyes disappeared early on and a few nods to modern technology (e.g., disc brakes) were slapped on, but overall we're dealing with a car that was obsolete from day one and stayed that way throughout its production run (as a Sprite owner, I'm allowed to say such things).

General Motors T Body (RWD)
21 years (1973-1994)
The Chevette, the Acadian, the Kadett C, the Gemini, the I-Mark, the Bird, the Chevanne... the list of cars that The General and his allies built on the rear-wheel-drive T platform goes on and on. Hell, maybe someone is still building the T; our eyes started glazing over after a couple hours of research.

VAZ-1111 Oka
21 years (1988-present)
The Oka appears to have the honor of Most Horrible Economy Car In The World nailed down, but it still sells pretty well in the former Soviet Union.
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Zastava Florida / Nasr Florida
21 years (1988-present)
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Fiat 500 (original)
20 years (1957-1977)
Would you believe that Fiat built the iconic Cinquecento until 1977?
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Saab 99/900
26 years (1968-1994)
As MrB00st and 900pilot have pointed out, the 900 was essentially a lengthened 99, and the 900 went to a new platform in '94. So, 26 years instead of 20.

Suzuki Cultus Gen 2 / Geo Metro / Holden Barina/ etc
20 years (1989-present)
Also known as the Suzuki Swift, this car probably holds the record for most bewildering sequence of model names and licensing deals.

In addition to the shots of junkyard-loving ladies posing with these relics of the Soviet era, we get an added bonus: what appears to be a Moskvich veteran of the 1970 London To Mexico City World Cup Rally (or some Russian car freak's replica). These shots were on EnglishRussia a few years back, but this sort of thing never goes stale.
[netwind.ru]

Well, you might keep shop manuals on your coffee table, but that would make you the kind of scarily focused gearhead who also keeps a couple of engine blocks in the kitchen. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but Haynes also puts out this… this four-pound slab of concentrated essence of car pr0n, and- now that you're aware of its existence- your life without it will seem as grim and flavorless as the sawdust-enhanced sausage ration in Vladivostok, 1949. It sure as hell isn't cheap, so those of you with a birthday coming up are advised to start dropping some very strong gift-idea hints to your loved ones right now. The rest of you will have to cough up the rubles on your own, but it will be worth it.



From the Ford clones of the 1920s and 1930s (starting with a copy of the Model A and continuing with the modified-for-Soviet-conditions Model B-based M1 shown above), the USSR was making cars and trucks from its earliest days. While some were based on foreign designs (the Opel Kadett-based early Moskvich and Fiat-based Lada being a couple of famous examples), many were all-Soviet projects.


Thompson's book covers all the major lines of Soviet cars and light trucks, including the GAZ Pobedas and Volgas, the ZIL limousines, the beloved Zaporozhets, and a bunch of acronymic vehicles we decadent Westerners have never heard of.


Vehicles manufactured according to the demands of a planned economy (in a nation whose rough roads cover 11 time zones and every crazy weather condition imaginable) were designed with different priorities than those found in the capitalist automotive world, and this book does an excellent job describing how those priorities worked during the Soviet period.


Things really got interesting during the Brezhnev era, during which the USSR's need for hard currency, coupled with the rise of inflation in the West, led to large-scale exports of Soviet-made vehicles. In early-70s Britain, car buyers could pick up a brand-new Moskvich 412 sedan for £717, which was £22 cheaper than a Mini and only £3 less than the wretched Hillman Imp. Many did, though some scary crash-test results took a big bite out of UK Moskvich sales. And, as Teargas has proven with his LeMons car, plenty of Ladas made it to Canada a few years later.


Thompson pays attention to Soviet racing achievements, from the early rally days to late-Soviet Lada hoonage. The machines of UAZ, IZH, RAF, etc., are here as well, with the story continuing to the end of the Soviet Union and a little beyond.

This one earns a five-rod rating (five being the highest rating, in honor of the most reliable automobile engine ever made), plus Bonus Balalaika for sheer Hero Of The Soviet Union-grade awesomeness. Murilee says check it out!

[Motorbooks]

We reported the other day that the Ganja Automobile Factory had cut a deal to produce cars for a foreign manufacturer, and now we've got more details. Apparently, besides the Russian VAZ cars the factory already produces, they'll also crank out 2,500 cars, minibuses and light trucks for Chinese automaker Lifan. Still, details are nebulous, due to the article having written by someone who either naturally has a limited command of the English language or was just really, really stoned.

2,500 Chinese cars to be built this year in Ganja [Trend]

Related:
Tommy Chong, Your Car is Here: New Cars to be Built in Ganja Car Factory [Internal]