AvtoVAZ

AvtoVAZ (Russian: АвтоВАЗ) is the Russian automobile manufacturer formerly known as VAZ: Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod (ВАЗ, Во́лжский автомоби́льный заво́д, or Volga Automobile Plant), but better known to the world under the trade name Lada. The current company name is "AvtoVAZ".

AvtoVAZ produces nearly one million cars a year, including the Kalina family (hatchback, wagon and crossover), Lada Granta family (sedan and liftback), Lada Priora family (sedan, hatchback, wagon and coupe), Lada 4x4 (former Lada "Niva") and Lada Largus (Renault-Nissan platform), as well as the cars of Renault-Nissan alliance brands: Renault Logan 2, Datsun on-Do (the Nissan sub-brand) and Nissan Almera New.

The VAZ factory is the largest car manufacturer in Russia and Eastern Europe and one of the largest in the world, with over 90 miles (140 km) of production lines; it is unique in that most of the components for the cars are made in-house.

History

The company was established in the late 1960s in cooperation with Fiat, with Viktor Polyakov (later Minister of Automobile Industry) as director, and Vladimir Solovyov being the chief designer, and intended to produce popular economy cars that would meet the growing demand for personal transport. It was set up as a collaboration between Italy and the Soviet Union and built on the banks of the Volga River in 1966. A new town, Tolyatti, named after the Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti, was built around the factory. The Lada was envisaged as a "people's car" like the Citroën 2CV or the VW Type 1. Production was intended to be 220,000 cars a year, beginning in 1971; car production actually began before the plant was finished in 1970. The VAZ trademark, at first, was a silver Volga boat on a red pentagonal background, with "Togliatti" superposed in Cyrillic (Тольятти); the first badges, manufactured in Turin, mistakenly had the Cyrillic "Я" rendered "R", instead (ТольRтти), making them collector's items.