[alfa] Them funny little Russian cars

[C M Smith <cmsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A rash of mea culpa's on the Digest is always refreshing, though completely 
unnecessary.

However, one recent post incorrectly connects that old Russian defective 
steel yarn with that excellent Czech manufacturer Skoda. The iron curtain 
cars built by Skoda may have been somewhat limited by the odd economic 
effects caused by centralized planning common to the pseudo 
communist  states of Eastern and Central Europe. (I say pseudo because no 
one in the World has actually tried a truly communist government, 
interesting debate for another day and another forum.) There was and is 
nothing wrong with Skoda's engineering and manufacturing skills however. 
And they were not Russian.

However, FIAT made its deal with the Soviets to sell them the old 124 
tooling enabling the Russians to make the Lada, a reasonable facsimile of 
the FIAT 124 but built of heavier gauge steel and with less power than FIAT 
obtained. Certainly, no twin cam version of the engine was made by the 
Russians. They were sold widely in Canada on the basis of their extremely 
low price. Quality was bad. Durability not too bad. Funny thing, the 
Italians also later sold the 127 tooling to the Yugoslavs who built that 
Yugo with similar defects that the Lada had. FIAT probably made more money 
selling obsolete car designs than they did making the cars themselves. If 
only we could persuade them to sell the Alfa tooling to GM and send it over 
to Tennessee or Georgia where some excellent automobiles are produced for 
furrin manufacturers.

Skoda of Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, made some neat little rear 
engined jobs which sold reasonably well in Canada and were quirky like a 
SAAB. They even kind of looked like a SAAB. They drove pretty well for an 
antiquated design. FIAT never made  a deal with them to sell them obsolete 
junk, Skoda would never be that dumb.

After the iron curtain came down, VW bought Skoda and it now makes really 
excellent modern product sadly unavailable in North America. The Czech's 
are known for great engineering skills. Skoda was a big armaments 
manufacturer and everyone wanted their tanks before WWII.

Cheers


Michael Smith
White 1991 164L
Original owner
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