“The reason was our mentality and corruption.”Īlthough he believed that one person or even a small team of engineers could never make a car better than a giant car-maker like Volkswagen, Hainov kept releasing new limited models in small numbers. “There was a demand and there were some pre-paid orders,” said Hainov in one of his interviews. Despite its eye catching design, reportedly successful ergonomics, and affordable production, the project did not make it to the year 2000. General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev invited them to join a project to create a brand new car for the year 2000.īut Hainov and Parfenov only needed one year to produce the futuristic-looking minivan ‘Okhta’.
Siberian supercars racing tv#
The two men received TV coverage which inevitably also reached the Communist Party of the USSR. The legend goes that renowned Italian automobile designer Nuccio Bertone saw the car at an automobile festival in Prague and was shocked when he saw what the two young amateur carmakers were able to produce in an abandoned garage with no support from the government or investors. Hainov claimed the car could reach a maximum speed of up to 170 km/h on a straight road. The amateur engineers showcased their invention at the EXPO-85 in Bulgaria. The car looked sporty and daring, unlike any other Soviet-produced automobile. The ”aggressive” exterior added to the shock. The cars only had engineering calculators (for calculating fuel consumption level and other easy parameters) built into the dashboards, but it was a minor aesthetic revolution in the Soviet car making that had never applied such futuristic looks in its vehicles.
A dashboard covered with buttons and switches was something unseen before in the Soviet Union.
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