Everyone’s Favorite Russian SUV Is Getting A Glow-Up And This Time It’s Not Pretending To Be A Chevy

The Lada Niva, Russia’s own sports utility vehicle, is set to make a triumphant return – despite never leaving, as it’s been built continuously since 1977. In nearly 50 years, the basic Niva hasn’t changed all that much, but it has also spawned different variants that have been modernized in various ways. One of its successors was even sold with Chevrolet badges, albeit only in its home market.

The significance of the original Niva cannot be denied, and developing a new version 50 years after the original comes with a lot of baggage. Russian roads are no joke, and any car that wears a Lada Niva badge needs to suit Siberia as well as St. Petersburg.

Cast your mind’s eye to the 1970s. Everything is brown, isn’t it? The Soviet automotive industry had finally achieved a forward-looking approach by creating its own version of the 1967 European Car of the Year, the Fiat 124, produced by the Volzhskiy avtomobil’nyy zavod, the Volga Automotive Factory or VAZ. The VAZ-2101 was exported from 1971 onwards under the name Lada 1200, and the wagon version, the VAZ-2102 followed a year later.

Even if these cars had been substantially re-engineered to differ from the more delicate Italian cousin, they were a little nimbler and more modern than the other regular Soviet passenger sedan of the time, the Moskvich 408, and bigger than the Ukrainian Corvair, the ZAZ.

Since things were rolling nicely, the two state-owned car companies, VAZ and Avtomobilny zavod imeni Leninskogo Komsomola, or AZLK (the maker of Moskvich cars, in Moscow, with Lenin acknowledged in the company name) were ordered to build a car that would fit Russia’s rural roads better than the passenger cars they were making, but one that would be more civilized than the 4×4 trucks on offer.

The Original, Unbeatable Lada Niva

During the development stage that took most of the 1970s, the VAZ team came up with a sort of a short three-door wagon with a modern unibody hatchback layout. It was the world’s first mass-produced unibody off-road vehicle.

While it resembled the Lada sedans on a detail level, it was influenced by the 1972 European Car Of The Year, the Fiat 127, and it also incorporated design details from previous prototypes, including the VAZ-1101, which was sort of a blend of a Honda N360 and a 127, and the IzH-14 prototype that heavily resembles the eventual production Niva.

The VAZ-2121, as the Niva was called, won the production contract over the Moskvich team’s AZLK-416, which was more of a traditional design. The 1.6-liter engine for the Niva came from the VAZ-2106, which was a more upscale Lada model than the 2101 and 2103 sedans, and which was also exported to Canada as the Lada Signet. As well as the 2106 engine, the Niva had a two-speed low-range gearbox, permanent four-wheel-drive, and central locking differential.

At the time, the 1970-introduced Range Rover was one of the more desirable 4x4s for sale, and the Niva was benchmarked against it as well as the older Land Rover; you can see a Range Rover in the promotional video above after the two-minute mark.

When it hit the market, the Lada Niva was something unusual for an exported Soviet vehicle: the right product at the right time, given that Soviet exports usually went for the “right price” and not much else.

For rural buyers, the Niva offered a lot of the same as the Range Rover, but for far cheaper – and it’s not like the build quality of the British 4×4 was exactly spot on, either. At one point, 40% of 4×4:s sold in Europe were Nivas, and it was also exported to Japan. It’s weird to see a Lada Niva for sale on Goo-net and other Japanese used car sales sites, since the exports usually go the other way around. Nivas were also fitted with Peugeot XUD diesels for export markets, as VAZ didn’t have a suitable diesel engine.

While it did gain more doors and a pick-up version, the original Niva was sold largely unchanged for decades, until its first official successor was devised in the 1990s. It rightfully gained a cult status, and Nivas featured as some sort of Knight Rider’s KITT equivalents in the ’80s Czechoslovakian tokusatsu series Návštěvníci (Visitors).

Ivan, It’s The Chevy Niva

Readied by 1995 and officially produced from 1998 onwards, the VAZ-2123 successor featured a swoopy ’90s interpretation of the Niva design and five doors instead of the original three, but it continued to be based on the same chassis with the same engine and transmission. You could draw some heavy parallels from that, but the weirdest thing is that for most of its production period, it was sold with Chevrolet branding.

Eager to fill the power vacuum, General Motors had formed a partnership with AvtoVAZ once the Soviet Union crumbled, and one aspect of the GM-AvtoVAZ joint venture was the GM fuel injection system in the 1994 VAZ-21073-40 Ladas, which were also the last new “classic” rear-wheel-drive Ladas sold in the European Union thanks to new seatbelt mounting point requirements that came into force in 1997.

The new Chevrolet Niva was designed and branded with export in mind, and GM-AvtoVAZ went far enough to try and supplement the Lada powertrain with Opel Ecotec units, as that would have been a very likely point of discussion when trying to win over buyers. However, the export version never materialized, and the bowtie badge remained a local market curiosity. By this time, affordable 4x4s were plentiful in the segment, so it’s difficult to say whether the modernized Niva would have sold well in export markets, with or without a Chevy badge.

After General Motors left the partnership in 2019, AvtoVAZ rebranded the car as a Lada Niva, with Bertone gently massaging the nose towards a slightly Daewoo-Chevrolet kind of look.

While the 2123 was produced as the Lada Niva, the classic 2121 model was called the Lada 4×4. It was later badged as the Lada Niva Legend, while the newer model’s subsequent revisions were sold as the Lada Niva Travel.

The nose of the Lada Niva Travel resembles a RAV4, until you notice what it’s bolted onto: it’s still the same 1990s body, on top of the 1970s chassis. For all this time, the engine on the newer Niva has been a 1.7-liter four.

The Renault Era

GM wasn’t the only Western carmaker to form ties with AvtoVAZ, as the Renault-Nissan Alliance swept in and became the controlling shareholder of AvtoVAZ in 2012. This enabled the Russian company to modernize the Lada manufacturing plants and also gave it access to Renault and Dacia tech of the time, which explains why there are so many Dacia-looking Ladas. Dacias were sold as Renaults in Russia, including the Renault Duster.

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022 drove Western brands out of Russia and caused Renault to rid itself of AvtoVAZ, the decade-long partnership had left enough Renault-based know-how in Russia that Lada could continue to manufacture and develop cars from the same basic building blocks, even if parts shortages and decontenting were inevitable due to economic sanctions.

That brings us to the all-new Niva. Recent patent renders have surfaced and show a vaguely Dacia Duster-shaped crossover SUV with a Lada recognizable Niva details. It’s easy to imagine that the manufacturer has taken what it can from the latest generation Duster, unveiled in 2023, during its development stage, as AvtoVAZ and Renault were developing a future Niva years ago on the Duster CMF-B platform before the war severed their ties.

The new Niva, then, will be the Duster equivalent for the Russian market, with or without Renault’s blessing. The front fenders, front doors, door handles, side mirrors and hard points certainly look like the ones on the Duster and its bigger sibling, the Bigster, but the body design has been tweaked towards the classic Niva shape.

The front even retains the Groucho Marx eyebrow style blinkers on the hood, like on the old one. The rear door handles are in the window frames, like on the Dacias, and they are the same shape.

On the drivetrain side, it is likely to be as basic as possible yet offering four-wheel-drive: whether the new Niva will use a VAZ engine or a Renault engine remains to be seen, as will the eventual launch date. The Dacia Duster offers downsized engines and hybrid technology, which may be dropped out of any Lada alternative.

And yet, the classic Niva will probably continue to be built. It’s been upgraded, downgraded, massaged, and modernized over the years, and if there’s one thing the Russians can do, it’s to keep doing the same thing the uppers tell them to do until they eventually run out of funds.

Photos: AvtoVAZ