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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Russian Lada was a “people’s car” that (like other Soviet products) was built for internal use and protected from competition. When the Soviet Union fell and Russian car manufacturers were exposed to competition, they eventually went out of business.

    The story is not that simple though. The Lada was a really popular and robust car. It lived on for a long time and exported versions to Canada and other places using Western fuel-injected engines. I have no idea what happened to the company in the end but it seems clear at least to me that it was the sudden huge change in competitive landscape that did it in, not the industrial planning.

    Škoda is a similar car brand from (at the time) Yugoslavia that managed to survive the fall of the Soviet Union and is still active as a brand today.