Nice Lada, Where Did You Get It?

According to RBK Daily (via here), a North Korean company called Lucas Trading purchased 250 cars made by the Russian company AvtoVAZ in the first half of this year. The cars apparently included the Lada Priora and the Lada 4x4.

The same company apparently has a record of purchasing cars from AvtoVAZ; 500 in 2008 and 530 in 2009; however, it purchased none last year.

Obviously, none of this is in any sense news. Given its status as a former ally of the Soviet Union, North Korea has a history of buying both Lada and Volga cars, some of which can be seen crawling the underpopulated streets of Pyongyang to this day.

Regardless of which, inspired to see whether the North Koreans were getting much bang for their buck, I looked for some reviews online, and this is what I came up with;

1) My Lada car was hit severely twice, once from the back, the other from the front, without any remarkable damage. 2) High performance on the road with smooth driving and no problems as long as you follow the maintenance schedule. 3) Equipped with EEC, power steering operated with hydraulic power, air-conditioning and electric windows but without air-bag...

Sounds good, doesn't it? Bit of a luxury vehicle for some in the North Korean capital, I'd say. But I wonder whether the next review might not have been a factor, too;

Pull your head out of your ass and stop exaggerating. These vehicles are mediocre, at best. They will break down when least expected. The positive side, cheap and easy to fix, every mechanics' dream come true...

Bit rude, but I can certainly see cheap and easy to fix being quite popular features. Might one speculate that fuel efficiency is also quite good?