ZAZ-1102 Tavria Auto Legends of the USSR

Vladimir Petrovich Steshenko initiated the development of a front-wheel-drive model at ZAZ. However, state funding was not forthcoming, while VAZ was preparing its own first front-wheel-drive model, the VAZ-2108, for series production. The Tavria was first shown to the country’s leadership, represented by Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, in Yalta in 1978. The General Secretary liked the small car, praised its designers and approved production. Yet it was only in 1985 that the Politburo authorised the Tavria’s series manufacture.

The car proved very easy to drive and economical. Its MeMZ-245 was a carburetted, four-stroke inline four with overhead valves and a displacement of 1,091 cc. It could propel the car, with a gross weight of 1,110 kg, to 148 km/h. Fuel consumption was around 4.6 litres per 100 km at an average speed of 90 km/h.

The Tavria had the chance to become the USSR’s first front-wheel-drive passenger car. Instead, the ZAZ-1102 became the last basic model developed at the Zaporizhzhia automobile plant. It was produced from 1988 to 2007.