Maraphon London – Mexico – 16,000 ml or 25,750 km.
Compare: Dakar 2009 – 9 574 km, Dakar 2010 – 9 030 km.
96 teams started from London on 19th, April. On 27th, May only 23 cars finished in Mexico. 400 hours of maraphon! It’s a great challenge both for the sportsmen and cars as well! Out of 25,810 km nearly a half was highland area…
In the team classification “Moskvitch” cars got bronze medal. In the individual trial Soviet teams got places 12th, 17th and 20th. The winner was Ford Escort 1850GT.
NICE!
Ahh, cool! Reminds me of Speed Racer.
Great posting!
it was a good car for its time, and even now you can see them drive on russian roads. How many other cars can do that?
I bet the export versions were especially good.
I drive a 1967 gas Mercedes 230 (6cyl) in the city 80km per day, less than 11 liters /100km, the best car in the world during the 60′s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_W111
No, it was not. It was a junk. Learn to live with that.
You have no brains but junk, learn to live with that.
Come on, that particular Moskvitch had nothing to do with those cars people could buy in the USSR or othern Eastern European countries. The Soviet cars like Zaporozhets or Lada had many serious technical failures, they were unreliable and most just poor copies of other Western cars of the time. I’m Hungarian, my family has had many ex-Soviet cars and I remember how many hours my father spent on fixing those cars. Currently we own a Niva for offroading, which is also an unreliable car, but at least it’s cheap and easy to repair.
in the soviet union, the same car model was built in different variations: one variation for inside use, and one that got sold abroad, of much better quality. some of those “abroad” versions came back cause of defects and the people still preferred them to the “inside” variations cause even with defects they were better.
another example of soviet non-military technology: there was a motorcycle factory, and the people that bought a brand new motorcycle had to repair it first to get it running.
but yea, cheap and easy repairs can be a big advantage in some situations.
well here in england brand new motorbikes come in boxes and you have to pay the dealer to put them together !& dont get me started on english cars british leyland could only pray to have cars as reliable as russian cars thats why there out of bussiness & lada aint
John is right kirov. Face it. Not to mention that abroad ussr made cars were sold cheaper than they costed to make.
Were excellent cars? In what way? driven many of those, they are a joke at least then talking about reliability. Havent seen worse car than moskvic.
odlot
Reminds me of the Wacky Racers cartoon. Where is Pennelope Pitstop?
Note boat trip at the north-west corner of South America. That’s the “Darien Gap”. About 60km of mountains and swamps where metres per day by vehicle is considered good progress. This is why you cannot drive from South America to North America.
No matter what you want to say about the Russian car of that time, the car in that race was a “special” car. And you know the guys life probably depended on it “If this car fails to make it across the line, you will be sent to gulag!!”
There’s no way a “regular” Russian citizen would be able to purchase a car like this. One that LOOKS like it, yes, one they SAY is the same, yes.
Almost any government (or car maker) would do that. They just want to ensure their cars win/pass.
So this by no means speaks for the car of that time.
The russian cars may be exterior copies of western models, but the cars were quite reliable. The parts were cheap, some parts usually fit other car models. They were also cheap. Anyway people from USSR considered german cars far supperior as it was.
Don’t make ‘em like they used too!
Bravo!!!!! i never heard about such rally, i was 9 years old in such time!.. the last phtogprah was taked in a famous hotel in mexico city: Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton!
Saludoos
Alejandro.
muy cierto Alejandro.
Saludos.
My grandfather used to own a Moskvitch 1360 (412??) combi. Considered the fact that Lada used to be premium or at least higher range affordable car in the Eastern block this was not much worse. It’s body was made of thick metal and the car was quite heavy for it’s size. Brakes were not very good neither was suspension. The car had very good heating however. I still remember that strong and unpleasant smell of plastic or PVC in the interiour as the materials were probably toxic from today’s point of view. My grandfather was giving the car a good and regular service and he was quite happy with it as it didn’t break down much. The car was a real work horse as he built three houses using this car for transporting materials. The consumption of Moskvitch made him buy a new car in the 90′s as this started to be too expensive to run. The car was not very special as built in late nineties it was maybe technically less advanced than my uncle’s early sixtes Opel Rekord Caravan which had a beautiful blue trim, very cool linear speedo and a great style. Unless you are a Wartburg man you will agree that Moskvitch was not a bad choice for the money it cost. In Czechoslovakia this car used to be called “Ragulin” after a famous Russian hockey player or an “iron dugout”. I remember that some of these same looking cars used to be branded A3NK as well as Moskvitch.
i guess its true, if u never have drive a car from the other side of the planet u cant compare, i live in argentina and now aday the cars that sell in here r good, and fine, but if u compare of what sell the same brand in europe the one in here really suck, trust me hehe