Lada: The Soviet Car That Outsold Honda

The Car Nerd with Jason Hassett · Sep 20, 2026 · 32m

In October 1974, a convoy of Soviet cars arrived at a former RAF nuclear missile base in East Yorkshire.Twelve years earlier, three American-controlled Thor missiles had stood on that same site, armed with thermonuclear warheads and pointed at the Soviet Union.Now it was being used to prepare Ladas for British customers.And fourteen years later, Lada would outsell Honda in Britain.The story began with the Fiat 124 — but the Soviet version was far more than a simple copy. Engineers subjected the car to brutal testing, discovered that it could not survive Soviet roads, and made more than 800…