Russia isn’t exactly a bastion of commercial opportunity at the moment. Unless you’re a citizen able to buy a departing western brand at a knock-down price. Back in the 1970s though, Russia – and the wider Soviet Union – was seen as a land of opportunity. If you were Fiat anyway.

A range of obsolete Italian designs were sold to the Soviet Union, with the most famous being this; the Lada 1600 / VAZ-2106. Like the 2103 that preceded it, the 2106 was based on the 1967 ‘European Car of the Year’ Fiat 124, although now updated with the deletion of the chrome brightwork (dull black plastic was far more appropriate at ensuring the population knew its place) and a larger engine of Lada’s own design

The 2106 was hugely successful, becoming VAZ’s most numerous product, and being built in several factories across the Soviet Union including in both Russia and Ukraine. Production finally ended in the early-’00s, after which Renault became a majority stakeholder in the company and Lada designs switched from Italian to French.

Which brings us back to Ukraine and knock-down prices, as last year Renault sold their majority stake in the Avtovaz / Lada company for just two roubles ($0.026) due to Russia’s ongoing war with its neighbour. It cost Renault around $2billion, and created the bargain of the century for a lucky Russian buyer.

That lucky buyer is of course the Russian State (aka Vladimir Putin), who has Lada back in Russian hands, and with $2billion of modern French technology thrown in too. Who’d have thought we’d be longing for a Lada built from bits of old Fiat in Cold War Soviet Ukraine, rather than a re-badged Renault stolen via a vicious illegal war.

We are though, so here’s Legostalgie‘s superb Lada 1600 / VAZ-2106, which is not only wonderfully realistic visually, it includes four opening doors, an opening trunk and hood, a beautifully detailed engine and a lifelike interior, all presented via top quality imagery.

There’s lots more of the model to see at Legostalgie’s ‘Lada 1600 / VAZ-2601’ Flickr album, and you can jump back to a time when Ladas were old Fiats rather than stolen Renaults via the link in the text above.

We like crap cars here at TLCB. The office car park features several. OK, by ‘like’, we mean ‘own’, but we do genuinely like it when they’re built from Lego bricks.

This is one such crap car, the Lada 1200 / VAZ-2101, and whilst the car-based efforts of communism were almost uniformly terrible, there is a lot to like about the Lada 1200.

Developed from the then decade-old Fiat 124, the Lada 1200 actually had a throughly excellent base, as back in the 1960s Fiat were one of the most forward-thinking and technologically advanced manufacturers* in Europe, with the Fiat 124 winning the European Car of the Year award in 1967.

The Lada 1200 was therefore actually quite a good car when it was launched, with a strengthened chassis, more advanced overhead cam engine, and the Fiat’s one key foible – rust – almost eliminated by Lada and VAZ’s use of much thicker steel and paint.

Of course decent engineering can be very much undone by poor build quality, limited competition, and corner cutting, which sums up communistical manufacturing nicely, and thus the Lada (and Soviet cars in general) quickly became known for being total crap. And that was even when compared to rivals like the Austin Allegro.

We’ll much rather take this one then – which features build quality on a level never achieved in Lada factory – from TLCB newcomer Legostalgie.

Legostalgie’s Model Team recreation of the Lada 1200 / VAZ-2101is superb, with opening doors, hood and trunk, a detailed engine and interior, and infinitely better build quality than the real thing.

Neatly pictured on a grey sofa (we think!), Legostalgie also proves you don’t need a professional set-up to Photo like a Pro, and there’s more to see of his wonderful Lada 1200 / VAZ-2101 model on Flickr by clicking these words.

*What the hell happened?