This Soviet Rally Lada Defected To Capitalism And Now It Wants $71,500 | Carscoops
The 1981 sedan was converted to rally spec in 1985 and competed in the Austrian Championship until 1989
6 hours ago
When you think of high-dollar classic rally cars from the golden era of motorsport, names like Lancia and Ford usually come to mind. A new listing on eBay, though, puts the spotlight on a much humbler contender with an interesting backstory.
The car is a heavily modified Lada Riva sedan, also known as the 2105, from the 1980s, built to Group B rally specification and now searching for an owner willing to look past the badge. The seller lists it in Germany with a buy-now price of €63,000, or $71,500 at current rates.
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The sedan rolled out of the AvtoVAZ factory in 1981, but the chapter that matters began in 1985, when it was converted into a proper rally car. The Lada 2105 VFTS (Vilnius Fabrika Transportnych Sredstv) was certified and registered for both rally and road use by the Austrian importer ÖAF, with Rudi Stohl running the program. From there it ran the Austrian Rally Championship without interruption through 1989, sharing duties between Rudi Strobl, Rainer Walenczko, and Engelbert Helm.
When the competition years ended, the Lada went into an Austrian garage and stayed there. The current owner picked it up in 2018 and brought it back with help from rally specialists. By 2020 it had earned a Historic Technical Passport (HTP) from the FIA, and it meets B222 homologation.
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Visually, the VFTS stands out thanks to the custom bodykit of wide fender extensions, a pronounced chin spoiler at the front and a ducktail at the back. It also gets the signature auxiliary spotlights, plus plastic windows to save weight. The look comes together with a set of five-spoke alloy wheels matching the white bodywork.
Inside, the cabin has been gutted down to two fixed racing buckets and a roll cage, with a scatter of extra gauges and switches added to the dashboard.
Under the hood, a naturally aspirated 1.6-liter engine carries twin Weber carburetors and a high-flow intake manifold. Output climbs from the factory’s 75 hp (56 kW) to 128 hp (96 kW), a healthy figure for an old sedan that the regulations peg at roughly 920 kg (2,028 lbs). Behind it sits a short-ratio five-speed manual dog-box gearbox feeding a Torsen limited-slip differential.
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Spending over seventy grand on something that started life as plain Soviet transport reads as madness on paper, except the market for historic rally machinery has real strength behind it. The question is whether a rally enthusiast will be drawn to this oddity instead of picking up a brand with deeper motorsport roots.
While Lada is not famous for its rally heritage, the 2105 sedan is an evolution of the original VAZ-2101, itself based on the Fiat 124 sedan from the 60s. The latter was replaced by the Fiat 131 in the ’70s, serving as the starting point for the legendary 131 Abarth Rally which won three manufacturer’s and two driver’s titles in WRC.
You can find the Lada listing here.
tschoenc / eBay
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Thanos Pappas
Associate Editor
Thanos Pappas, a product design engineer by trade, has been wading through automotive journalism for... Read full bio