IZHEVSK, April 13 (Itar-Tass) — The Izhevsk-based car plant will complete manufacturing of LADA-2107 medium-sized family cars, the press centre of Russia’s major car manufacturer AVTOVAZ told Itar-Tass on Friday.
According to the company, the decision was made in connection with a significant decline of LADA-2107 sales in 2012.
“The decision is made in conformity with our initial plans. The demand in the sol-called ‘basic models’ dropped. It is a time to say ‘good-bye’ to them,” the press centre quoted words of the plant’s PR Director Igor Burenkov.
The assembly of one of the AVTOVAZ’s most popular models, which was carried out only at the IzhAvto plant from 2011, will be completed already next week, he said.
The company plans to promote more modern LADA models, including the leaders of the January-March 2012 sales LADA Kalina, LADA Priora and LADA Granta, which got the name of “new classics,” the press centre said.
Now, the IzhAvto plant continues upgrading its assembly facilities for the production of the LADA Granta model, which is now considered as a car of economy class that was mainly designed for the Russian market.
Besides, the plant will continue manufacturing IZH minivans and LADA-2104 cars, which is also a representative of the same family with LADA-2107.
In January 2012, the Izhevsk-based car plant launched deep technological upgrading of its facilities without an interruption of its production. IzhAvto specialists are planned to train at AVTOVAZ’s lines, which manufacture LADA Grantas.
In 2012, IzhAvto plans to produce 55,400 LADA Grantas, the press centre said.
LADA Granta is a car with front-wheel drive, which is designated on the Kalina platform, but it is expected to be more safe, modern and comfortable than Kalina. AVTOVAZ started the production of LADA Grantas in two basic versions – “standard” and “normal.”
The new model was designed with the use of Renault-Nissan digital technologies and methods. Granta has an eight-valve engine with a volume of 1.6 litres, which makes a car of the model comfortable both inside and outside of a city. The maximum speed is 167 kilometres per hour. Fuel consumption in a mixed regime slightly exceeds seven litres per 100 kilometres.
AVTOVAZ is Russia’s major car manufacturer, also known as VAZ, Volzhsky Auto Plant, and better known to the world as LADA, was set up in the late 1960s in collaboration with Italy’s Fiat. It is 25 percent owned by French giant Renault.
It produces nearly one million cars a year, including the Kalina, LADA110 and the NIVA off-road vehicles.
However, the original Fiat-24-based vehicle, the VAZ-2102 and its derivatives, remain the models most associated with its LADA brand.
The VAZ factory is one of the biggest in the world, with over 144 kilometres of production lines, and is unique in that most of the components for the cars are made in-house.
The original LADA was a basic car, lacking in most luxuries expected in cars of its time and was patterned after the Fiat 124. LADAs were available in several Western countries during the 1970s and 1980s, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, though trade sanctions banned their export to the United States. Sales to Italy were forbidden by the agreement between the Soviet government and Fiat, to protect Fiat from cheap imports in its home market.