Something different today! Like many Eastern Bloc cars, the Dacia 1300 had an unnaturally long life. Changing economic and political circumstances, and some clever updating and modifying, meant that what began as a licensed 1969…
Browsing Category Eastern Bloc Cars
1963 Trabant 600: An Early Trabbi Becomes A Car Show Hero
The Trabant 600 was the last of the early series Trabbis and a car still competitive with Western alternatives when new, but it was built for just two years.
Zaporozhets ZAZ-968A: Ukraine’s People’s Car
While it was often associated with Russia in the west, and indeed it was the most common car on Russian streets before the advent of the Lada, the Zaporozhets was actually built in Ukraine, and…
Velorex 16/350: Czechoslovakia’s Cult Cyclecar
Once the subject of considerable ridicule, today this little Czech trike is today a highly-prized oddball with the same kind of charm as a Morgan three-wheeler. In a way, that’s not so surprising, as the…
VAZ-2106: The People’s Favorite Lada
The definitive version in Soviet times was the VAZ-2106, but there were many iterations of the basic Lada package. What else would you expect from a car with such a long lifespan? The first Ladas…
Škoda 1200 & 1201: Modern for Mladá Boleslav
It wasn’t the most exciting car, but what an evocative photo! The car is a Škoda 1201, an outgrowth of the closely related (and visually almost identical) Škoda 1200. The basic vehicle was the second…
FSM Syrena: Siren of Warsaw
A throwback today to car shows past today and 2009. This looks like a car of the 1950s, but this particular car was produced from 1972 to 1983. It’s a 1974 FSM Syrena 106, built…
Sachsenring P70: Designed in Duroplast
Chances are good you’ve at least heard of the Trabant, national car of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR); but the Trabant wasn’t invented overnight. This dour gentleman is standing next to a Sachsenring P70 –…
Wartburg 311/2: East Germany in California
No, those California black plates don’t lie, this is an East German Wartburg 311/2 convertible that was sold new in Los Angeles, in what is now Arlington Heights. In the late 1950s, an enterprising car…