Don’t knock the Lada Riva series of sedans…they are the third best selling cars on the planet behind the Model T Ford and the VW Beetle, and have one of the longest production runs, comparing again to the Beetle and to the Hindustan Ambassador. They were shaped like a brick, built like a work boot and were intended to be durable. Whether they actually were or not, you can decide for yourself if you ever get the chance to see one on the move. I have, from my times spent overseas, and to be quite honest, the two I saw both looked like they narrowly escaped from the bottom of the crash pile at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle with their lives, with not one single remaining panel on them straight and their engines running on pure desperation alone, it seemed.
The Garage 54 channel seems hell-bent on using every last Lada-branded product up in a manner that will get it off the road in a hurry. Here, Vlad’s latest idea involves mating two of the four-cylinders into one inline-eight monster via a hard attachment point between the pressure plate of the front engine and the front drive accessory pulley of the rear engine. Saying that this is a crude attempt is a solid call…the engines are offset 180 degrees and the cradle for the front block is raw stock. But we’re actually kind of intrigued…they did performance testing on the standard car before the cutting began and if the newly-melded engine lives long enough (saying nothing of the transmission or rear axle), this could be kind of impressive. What do you think?
