Rival House

Think “stanced” or “hellaflush” and big luxury Japanese cars like the Toyota Celsior and Aristo, Nissan Cima and even the Honda Legend are likely the first to come to mind. As the movement evolved, enthusiasts began modeling other vehicles on the same premise, everything from the Toyota bB to the Volkswagen Golf, even the occasional Honda Odyssey and Toyota Alphard.

But in Russia, acquiring such vehicles is an expensive endeavor if not downright impossible. The Russian government has placed huge taxes on imports, with the intention of keeping domestic sales the dominant force on the market. To avoid the import tax, foreign manufacturers have to build factories in Russia and sell the cars back in the country, which so far hasn’t been something many automakers have had any desire to do.

So without foreign makes readily available, enthusiasts in Russia must turn to modifying what they have available. Who would’ve thought that cars from Russian manufacturer Avtomobilniy Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod, now known as AvtoVAZ and marketed under the more popular name, Lada, would have ever found their place in the modified world?

If you follow the BBC’s Top Gear, you’ve seen Ladas throughout the series, though they’ve often been the subject of ridicule for being cheap “communist cars.” But in season one, the folks at Lotus spent 1000 hours and £100,000 turning a Lada Riva, based off the old Fiat 124, into a track car with impressive results, proving the right modifications can do wonders to a car’s appeal.

And this couldn’t be more apparent than with the Russian-based car club, Radical Low Cars, to which I was introduced through member Igor Belkin.

The three cars featured here represent different styles of modification, and all are ongoing projects. One retains an almost classic, retro appeal, while another follows a similar principle to mimic its Nissan inspiration, and another pushes the envelope of the still-developing stance movement in the Russian Federation.

The first car is a 1976 Lada 2103, owned by Oleg Kashelyuk of Kyiv, Ukraine . He bought the car, nicknamed “Christina,” in May 2008 as just a rolling chassis. He soon found an engine, with 600,000 kilometers (about 374,000 miles) on it, repainted it the body, and started the build process.

He said the car has gone through many changes to get to its current state.

“The car has come a long way, from a junkyard-bound crash victim to fart can street-racer wannabe, and finally to this speedbump-scraping resto queen,” Kashelyuk said.

The 2103 even found itself on Speedhunters.com twice earlier this year: once for the February 1 post “All Around the World,” where it was shown as a reader’s ride submission, and later that month when The Low Club Ukraine made a guest blog appearance.

The oil pan guard sits just three centimeters off the ground, which Kashelyuk said is drastically low considering the quality of Ukrainian roads.

The car looks simple and elegant, with its clean, boxy lines accentuated by the retro white wall tires. While its fitment might not be aggressive to some, it presents a classic lowrider vibe which resonates well. Kashelyuk said future plans for Christina include going lower and acquiring more period-correct accessories.

Next up, there’s the 1995 Lada 2106 owned by Tony Masao, of Moscow. The 2106 was originally introduced in 1971 and remained in production largely unchanged until 2001. It continues to be manufactured under licensing agreements.

Masao has had the car for three years, and said its been through several styling changes during that time. He’s even generated a computer model of what he wants the finished product to look like, but said money and “heaps of parcels from Japan” are required to make the dream a reality. Here’s a few of the guises the car has seen over the years:

Masao said he drew inspiration from Nissans of the ’60s and ’70s, like the Bluebird and C30 Laurel, and wants to reflect that in the finished Lada. The trunk lid is even adorned with a Japanese naval flag to symbolize that inspiration.

He’s done a bit of fender work too, flaring them out in a similar fashion to that found on the “Hakosuka” era Skyline GT-R.

I wasn’t able to dig up much more on this car, as the build thread was only three pages long.

Last but not least is the 2000 Lada Samara 21099, owned by Dima Limong, also of Moscow.

Limong bought the car in 2001 but didn’t start the modification until 2008. The suspension has been completely rebuilt to be able to lay the body on the ground. He plans on doing a bit of redesigning to make it look more “clear and simple” in the future.

After browsing Radical Low Cars’ forum, this was the only car I saw that had undergone the transformation to be concurrent with the stance movement.

Limong’s first real on-road experience with the car came in April, and from what I could gather from Google’s rough translations, the experience went better than expected and all the protection he added for the undercarriage worked great. This is good, as it scrapes a lot:

And due to the same rough translations, I’m not able to accurately report on the countless other modifications the car has undergone since the transformation began, but I can tell you that there has been a tremendous amount of work poured into the black 21099 to get it to where it’s at today.

Belkin said the stance scene in Russia is just starting to get off the ground, and Limong’s 21099 is the only one like it in the area.

“In Russia, the stance movement isn’t developed,” Belkin said. “We’re not ready in Russia for strong changes.”

He added that there was another club in Russia, but it focused more on restoration of classic cars rather than slammed and stanced cars.

Be on the lookout for more features from Russia as I lurk more on the forums and find other new and exciting builds. To give you a hint at what’s coming in the future, expect to see something slammed you most likely would’ve never even considered possible.

And at this time, I’d like to give a huge “thank you” to Igor Belkin of Blagoveshensk, Russia, for helping me acquire all of this information and helping me better understand the automotive culture in Russia.

For more on these and others slammed and stanced Russian vehicles, check out their car club, Radical Low Cars at http://radicallowcars.ru/

or look them up on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Radical-Low-Cars/163252420363292?v=wall

Words: Nick Quigley

Photos of each car were taken by their respective owners.