Challenge: Soviet cars popular in US

I think it's possible to imagine the Soviet auto industry doing better. Czechoslovakia's Skoda seems to have had some success in western Europe at that time, and with better quality control the Yugo could also have taken off. Frankly, for industrializing middle-income countries, creating an automotive industry aimed at least in part at the export market is more common than not. South Korea comes to mind as the most recent example, but Italy, Japan and Germany also achieved this in the mid-20th century.

At a minimum, you are going to have to keep détente going, or even deepen it. The Soviet Union will be a much more acceptable commercial partner for the United States, perhaps even at the expense of the American automotive industry, if it is not threatening. On a perhaps related note, the Soviet car industry is going to need to assimilate Western industrial standards quickly. A Chinese-style trajectory earlier on, perhaps, Khrushchev or even Beria leading some kind of perestroika earlier while not losing control of the empire?
 
Ford Pinto says hi.
Shorter bolts would have fixed the Pinto, as there was really no difference from the Pinto setup from what Ford had started back in 1960 with the Falcon, using the gas tank as the trunk floor, that was carried over into every other compact and intermediate they built till the '70s
 
I honestly didn't know that, I always though airbags were a thing of the late 80's and early 90s when they started appearing over here in the UK

When the Airbags started appearing in cars in each market depended on the automotive safety regulations. Here in the U.S. vehicles that were manufactured from April 1, 1989 required "Passive restraints" for the driver which consisted of either a Airbag or Automatic Seat Belts. Interestingly by that time Chrysler had already made Drivers side airbags standard in many of their Cars excluding the captive imports and the Eagle Premier and badge-engineered Dodge counterpart (Discontinued after 1992) while Ford had Cars that offered either an airbag or Automatic Seat Belts found mainly their smaller cars and the Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar with many of the cars that were made by General Motors had not even offered Airbags until the 1994 and 1995 Model Years. Even then General Motors was offering some cars in 1996 that didn't even offer Passenger side Airbags (Most of those were discontinued after 1996). And these facts don't include the Pickup Trucks, SUV's, Minivans, Mid Size Vans, Full Size Vans.
 
Shorter bolts would have fixed the Pinto, as there was really no difference from the Pinto setup from what Ford had started back in 1960 with the Falcon, using the gas tank as the trunk floor, that was carried over into every other compact and intermediate they built till the '70s

Regarding the Pinto's gas tank Ford had made every attempt to remedy the gas tank issue (All 1971 to 1976 Model Year Pinto's were recalled) once those problems had became apparent even then the Pinto was dropped for good after the 1980 Model Year as Front Wheel Drive had at that time had became the way to go for Small Cars. If the gas tank of the Pinto was actually placed in front of the Rear Axle (Placing the gas tank behind the Rear Axle was commonplace at that time) those issues (Gas tanks exploding in a Rear End collision) would have been avoided.

Subsequent studies were conducted regarding the Pinto's safety stated that it was not any more unsafe than other similar size cars of it's time.
 
Yeah but you should be worried when you get a car and they include the tools to fix the damn thing. Thats like buying a PC and then being given a foam fire extinguisher and when asking the salesman/woman why they reply "Oh..no reason..just keep it close when you turn it on okay?"
And you said its got a rev meter, thats pretty standard on all the cars of the time so its not really that great a thing say as a positive :p Imagine if Ford went "The new Zappa, with four wheels!" people be like 'yes its a car, its meant to have 4 wheels, why bring that up as a bonus?'

Yes Lada's are good little runners, and they train you how to be a vehicle mechanic, which is a bonus I guess? But they look like they were designed on an etch-a-sketch (then again so do Lincoln town-cars from the 70s). But really they'd need to completely re-work the Soviet cars to western safety standards and then overcome the US cultural bias against the Soviet union as well. The formers possible, the latter...in the 50s is impossible and whilst that MIGHT change in the 60's/70's with young 'rebels' buying Soviet to stick it to their old man/THE MAN, they are still SHIT cars by Western standards and the West produced some real dogs eggs, but still probably better than Russian stuff. You can bedazzle a turd, but its still a turd.

Well rev meters and bateery meter was an extra on most cars of the day, as for Top gear unless its a $100K car its usual shit in their opinion, like I said no problems with the car it self. Lets face it its biggest problem in the opinion of people nad media is that it was Soviet.
 
Top gear unless its a $100K car its usual shit in their opinion

Top gear isn't a show about cars and what to buy etc. Its 3 blokes dicking around and driving absurdly expensive cars or absurdly cheap ones. Its not a show you watch for good market advice if you're torn between a Mazda and a Ford :p

Lets face it its biggest problem in the opinion of people nad media is that it was Soviet.

VERY true, I grew up in the 80's (born in 1980) and I recall seeing Lada's and Yugo's around where I lived and I also recall as a kid knowing that those cars were utter shite. I have no idea how I know, just that I did. Basically if you saw a Lada or Yugo, they were laughed at, not taken seriously.
 
It was true that scores of people who bought Yugo's had definitely regretted their decisions to purchase one as the Yugo's we're a complete waste of money. For your information Yugoslavia was not part of the Warsaw Pact in fact it was part of the Non Aligned Movement. The Yugo was actually loosely based on the Fiat 127. In fact a used Chevette would have been a better buy than a Yugo ever was.

Didn't know that about Yugoslavia--does that mean in an East-West military confrontation, they wouldn't be involved? In any case, a little red Ryder wagon (as in the kind kids play with) would be a better buy than a Yugo.
 
Didn't know that about Yugoslavia--does that mean in an East-West military confrontation, they wouldn't be involved? In any case, a little red Ryder wagon (as in the kind kids play with) would be a better buy than a Yugo.

Non-alinged movement shenanigans played a big role in getting the Yugo stateside to begin with-again, I recommend Jason Vuic's The Yugo for the whole sorry story.

(They needed to export, Bricklin wanted a cheap peoples car, the US government and financial industry wanted the Yugoslavs to stay on the West's good side, and the rest is history)
 
Non-alinged movement shenanigans played a big role in getting the Yugo stateside to begin with-again, I recommend Jason Vuic's The Yugo for the whole sorry story.

(They needed to export, Bricklin wanted a cheap peoples car, the US government and financial industry wanted the Yugoslavs to stay on the West's good side, and the rest is history)

Even than we all know what had happened in the end. Yugoslavia fell into full blown civil war and disintegrated into multiple nations.
 

samcster94

Banned
Ladas had a not very good reputation in Canada - but they WERE cheap. If you needed a car and didn't have a lot of money, a Lada looked better than nothing, and often more reliable than a second-hand car.

Do remember two things, though. We never were as virulently anti-Commie as the US was, and we were selling a lot of wheat to the USSR and they needed to sell something back.

Yeah. I think they'd have sold a fair number in the States, if they'd been allowed in. Although not as big a chunk of the market as in Canada.

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Yugos were available in the States, no? They filled a similar market niche. Both being derivatives of the same Fiat model, I think.

Interesting. Even if Americans had access to Ladas, they'd sell poorly, especially in the South.
 

MrP

Banned
Paradoxically, the Soviets kept trying to design cars based on American/Western European ideas of what cars should be like, instead of coming up with their own concepts. The one time they designed a car with no preconceived notions, it looked fairly promising: the VNIITE-PT (for "All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics Perspective Taxi", quite a mouthful of a name) was intended as a cab and urban family vehicle. It looked sort of pleasantly futuristic by 1960s standards, with a lot of attention to ergonomics and optimal use of internal space, while still being cheap to assemble. Apparently New York city hall got wind of the project in 1968 and expressed interest, but in the end it didn't enter production.

Imagine Robert de Niro driving one of those in an alternate "Taxi Driver" :p

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While the Soviet and Eastern Bloc carmakers produced many potentially competitive prototypes, there was simply no money to bring them to production or the prototypes themselves were killed off by the Communists for other reasons. See - http://jalopnik.com/a-car-you-never-heard-of-the-compact-tatra-that-wasnt-1746271166

As for how Soviet (and Eastern Bloc) can be made popular in the US (Soviet VW Beetle aside) it is difficult. Perhaps Fiat during its financial troubles in the 70s pensions off the Fiat 130 to Lada who in turn sells the simplified Lada-ized Fiat 130 to the US, if not maybe the Soviets choose Volkswagen instead of Fiat to form the basis of ATL Lada and go on to produce Soviet versions of the Volkswagen EA128 and smaller Volkswagen EA276 to sell to the US amongst other options.

Had the means and opportunity been available the Soviets were actually interested in the Autobianchi Primula instead of the Fiat 124 before being persuaded by Dante Giacosa to settle for the Fiat 124, so the Soviets would have potentially had an early hatchback challenger to the Volkswagen Golf.

Yugo meanwhile should have used the Autobianchi A112 as the basis for the Yugo as a sort of Eastern Bloc Mini challenger (replacing the earlier Zastava 750), allowing both the Fiat 127 and Fiat 128 based Yugos to feature slightly larger 1400-1600cc NA petrol engines with US market versions of the Yugo Koral featuring a 5-door hatchback bodystyle (like the SEAT 127) while US versions of the Yugo Skala feature a 4-door saloon / 5-door estate bodystyles.
 
I don't think the USSR would have a chance with autos, but Russia did with the Ural Motorcycle line in the US.
Had they been imported in the '70s, they wouldn't have looked too bad reliability wise vs the AMF era Harleys, and would have been far cheaper
 

MrP

Banned
An idea that comes to mind: how about having the Soviet car industry seek markets in the Third World and especially in non-aligned countries and Soviet client states? Low prices (and preferential treatment) would allow it to undercut Western competition, and safety standards would be less of an issue.
 
An idea that comes to mind: how about having the Soviet car industry seek markets in the Third World and especially in non-aligned countries and Soviet client states? Low prices (and preferential treatment) would allow it to undercut Western competition, and safety standards would be less of an issue.

They did that OTL, though. Even that runs into the nimbler Asian automakers producing for the same target audience, assuming it isn't a bloc captive one.
 
An idea that comes to mind: how about having the Soviet car industry seek markets in the Third World and especially in non-aligned countries and Soviet client states? Low prices (and preferential treatment) would allow it to undercut Western competition, and safety standards would be less of an issue.

Would have thought the Soviet car industry already pursued that route in OTL, also in Lada's case (AFAIK) the fact that India had its own version of the Fiat 124 and other Fiat-based cars via Premier (or Premier Automobiles Limited) likely dissuaded them from entering the Indian market.
 
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