What is the first thing you picture when you hear “Lada”? Chances are good that you are picturing a Lada Riva, the square, boxy Russian tank of an econocar that was based off of a mid-1960s Fiat design and was often the punchline of many jokes. You certainly don’t picture a tracked five-door hatchback tooling around in the snow, do you? What you’re looking at is a Lada Samara mounted on…well, we aren’t quite sure what the foundation really is from, but tracks and the resulting lift have certainly improved on the Samara’s sub-2.0L four-cylinder and front-wheel-drive setup. The owner and builder of this Samara, Andrei Romanov, built the beast to easily deal with Siberia’s treacherous winter conditions…and, accidentally, might have inspired tons of people who are sick of traffic jams to look at their cute-ute and wonder how well it would run over rush-hour traffic if some tracks were providing the momentum. Pretty? No, but it’s functional, and it works exactly as the builder envisioned. That’s awesome no matter how you look at it.

(Courtesy: CarThrottle)