Friday, November 09, 2007

How ironic -

The way Ukrainians and Romanians have both managed to convert their glorious past into the not-so-glorious cars:

From Zaporizhska Sich - to Zaporozhets.

From Dacia - to, well, Dacia.

8 comments:

  1. Don't forget the ever-popular Moskvych!

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  2. I only knew the Zaporozhets by its nickname - the invalidka. Perhaps they're not so glorious, but I think they're cute. I recently saw one (model ZAZ-965/965A, according to that Wikipedia article) here in SPb with a high-quality new paint job (bright pink!) and an ad for a mini-hotel on the side. I thought that was very clever. :-)

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  3. Very interesting post for me. I love little cars like that. They might be a little more glorious than you think with oil prices such as they are now.

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  4. Coincidentally, Kostia was talking about the Zaporozhets last night and he set me straight: it's not the same as the invalidka. And now that I remember the two or three real invalidkas I've seen, they I realize that they are even smaller than the the Zaporozhets. The pink car I saw was a ZAZ-965/965A, though.

    Kostia also told me an old joke about the Zaporozhets: "Just 15 minutes of shame, and you're at work!"

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  5. Dear neeka. Yeh the dacias were everywhere in Romania but the recent ones are really nice, they really do look a lot like renaults.

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  6. As Zadornov said: "Kto by dumal, chto Zaporozhets stenet inomarkoi?"

    "Who would have thought that the Zaporozhets would become a foreign (by implication prestigious or quality) car?"

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  7. That's because Renault bought Dacia in 1998.

    Today’s echo of the Zaporozhets is called the Lanos (aka Sranos).

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