Remember the Lada Niva? Russia’s answer to the Land Rover Defender learned all of the lessons taught by the British classic and delivered them at a much lower price.
The butt of thousands of jokes ever since its 1977 launch (the same year as the Porsche 928, incidentally), the Niva – renamed the Lada 4x4 in 2006 after parent company AvtoVAZ sold the name’s rights to GM -- has been turned into an ambulance in its native Russia.
The five-door version of the 4x4 has been officially built by the Lada factory as a machine for transporting doctors, but will see double service for disabled patients.
The AvtoVAZ brand’s ambulance will retain the 1.7-litre four-cylinder engine under its ancient bonnet, producing a thumping 62kW of power and paired to a five-speed manual gearbox.
There won’t be many more powertrain upgrades, but there will be a few inside, including a raft of medical bits and pieces like a swing-out mechanism for the right front seat.
There will also be a stretcher and a stretcher-catching apparatus, plus power windows (a big thing, apparently, in a 4x4), air-conditioning (ditto), steps and a heater for the rear seats.
It is far from the first emergency-services version of the 4x4 sold by Lada, whose police cars have featured just about every spy movie from The Bourne Identity to Atomic Blonde, while there are also fire-brigade 4x4s all over Russia.
Lada sold 23,464 4x4s in the first nine months of the year (roughly lineball with its 2018 figures) and the archaic off-roader is due to receive a major facelift at the end of this year.
It will score new bumpers, lights, bodywork, dashboard, instrument cluster, central tunnel and a complete interior overhaul, right down to its steering wheel, which will no longer be made from hand-carved stone from the Ural Mountains.