How did we come to find ourselves (the staff at GTC that is)
tangled up with a cold war relic, a Soviet “People’s Car” if you will?
It all stemmed from my interest obtaining a cheap,
knockaround 4x4 to conduct “overlanding” excursions, and my fascination in
Russian things. This, coupled with Shawn’s ingrained off-road nature and a
watchful eye on the local Kijiji listings from Robb all brought us to the day
we found a Lada.
In early November, Robb found a Kijiji listing for a $500
Niva and provided the urging to “go for it”. I had already asked Shawn his
opinion (on Ladas) as he would be providing his years of off-road expertise and
would be the muscle behind keeping something like this ticking. This Lada
seemed pretty good, low price, which is always important for an experiment like
this, decent mileage, 60,000 km’s, and by the photographs, good shape-great shape by Lada standard.
So it was just a matter of landing this one. On Thursday
November 8th, I called the
number listed and got a rather irate woman who was tired of people calling
about a car she wasn’t selling, the listed number was incorrect. Giving it a
bit of thought, I decided to check Kijiji for any other listings by the same
seller, and I found a set of tires with a different number then tried that with
success, I had gotten through!
The advert listed the Lada as having a broken engine mount
and I asked the seller if it was drivable, (with caution) and he was adamant
that a trailer would be required for transport. I said I would call back in a
few minutes after I looked into trailering options. I called Shawn, explained
the issue and he figured we could either chain the engine into place for a
short run, or simply pull it with my SVT Lightning pickup with a U-haul.
Invigorated, I again called the seller and asked if we could take a look that
evening, and possibly purchase. Directions were given to a spot in Leduc AB,
and we set off with cash in hand.
Due to bad weather it took a little longer than anticipated
to make the trip to Leduc and we arrived under full darkness around 9pm. We
gave the Lada a good look over, signed a bill of sale, and money changed hands.
With the keys and the bill in hand we departed back north, planning to return
on the weekend a few days later for recovery.
