The Lada – 19 Million Sold
This one’s a bit silly and like the Beetle, it’s a car (or cars, rather) borne of a despotic government and nationalist upbringings: The LADA line of Russian cars. Based out of an obscure, Ruskie-sounding cold land called Tolyatti, Samara Oblast, Lada was at one point the most bought and sold line of cars in Russia and Eastern Europe.
The most popular Lada, the “Classic”, was based on the Fiat 124 sedan and rolled off Ivan’s factory in 1970. While the Lada was nothing to raise a brow of interest at, it was a highly dependable, unpretentious car that just so happened to be the only car most Eastern Europeans could afford. But interestingly, the Lada didn’t sell over 19 million of its models to just European citizens – there weren’t even 19 million Eastern Europeans who could likely afford a car at the time of production.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Instead, the cash-strapped Soviet Union got smart and traded Ladas in international transactions. Over 60% of Lada production was exported, in fact. Even Coca-Cola sold its products to the Eastern bloc in exchange for Ladas, which were in turn sold in the UK. The venerable Lada may not be so well known in the West, but astonishingly, its design remained largely unchanged throughout its 42 years of dutiful service. It remained in production until 2012, and millions are still on the road today.
