The AvtoVAZ plant has long ceased to please consumers with interesting new products. The long Vesta - Aura and the electric Largus at exorbitant prices are not of great interest to the average consumer, the Schrödinger's Iskra is interesting, but you can't buy it, and the Azimut will not go on sale anytime soon. One might think that the plant has always had a hard time offering the buyer something interesting, however, this is not the case. Lada had interesting developments and "Tarzan" is one of them.
Technically, "Tarzan" was not entirely assembled by AvtoVAZ. The car was a joint development of the AvtoVAZ Experimental Industrial Production, the DECON design company, and the "Lada-Consul" enterprise. The car even had 2 generations: the first with a body from 2109, and the second from 2111 and 2112. However, it was not the body that was the main feature of the car, but what it was attached to. All the chassis, power units and steering were taken from the "Niva", and it itself was frame-based. The only part that was not factory-made was the driveshaft, which had to be made slightly longer.
The car had disc brakes on all 4 wheels - an unattainable luxury for AvtoVAZ to this day. The body of the car was forced to undergo minor changes - it was necessary to hide the places where it was attached to the frame. Also new were the bumper and wheel arch linings.
There were no changes in the cabin, except for one forced one - the transfer case and gearbox handles moved here from the "Niva". Otherwise, it is a completely standard "nine" or "twelve".
The car was produced from 1997 to 2006 in very small batches and to order. In total, about 2,500 pieces were produced, some of which periodically appear on car sales websites. Previously, the Motoram editorial staff reported on an instance that appeared on sale, which was converted to look like a VAZ 2114, however, who carried out this conversion is unknown. Nothing is known for certain about the officially produced "Tarzan" cars with the 2114 body, therefore, most likely, this is a conversion by an enthusiast author, especially since updating the appearance of the 2109 to the 2114 is a very non-trivial task.
Lada "Tarzan" is a unique car that combines the off-road qualities of the "Niva" and the comfort of VAZ 2109 or VAZ 2112 cars (comfort relative to the "Niva", of course). It is difficult to imagine a better unit for family trips to the country or for mushrooms. Whether AvtoVAZ will ever be ready for such experiments again remains to be seen.
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