The story of the Soviet Union's cars then has to be seen in the context of a planned society in a vast, relatively undeveloped territory in which everything was planned well in advance, in which consumer items were not a priority until well after the Second World War when the country had developed the necessary heavy industry to be in a position to develop consumer products.

The Soviet leaders also realized that they needed to acknowledge human nature -- that people did want something material to show at the end of the working week. The desire for a car was as much a part of the growing power of an increasingly well educated, well fed and healthy people in the Soviet Union as it was elsewhere in the world.

The cars designed and built by the Soviet Union and in post Soviet Russia are therefore unique in the world because they have a unique heritage. They were cars built for a social purpose, influenced by politicians, designed with military needs in mind, sold in a country where the open road was often a 300 mile long track across a windswept steppe.

The cars of the Soviet Union may not have the cachet of Mercedes, Jaguar and Ferrari, be as well known as Volkswagen, Renault and Toyota, be as universally well loved as MG, Alfa Romeo and Land Rover - but they are just as important a part of the global motoring story as such revered brands. That is why it is perhaps interesting and timely to look at the cars produced by the Soviet Union and those made in the aftermath of communism before the memories and the cars themselves fade away.

Format: Hardbound
Pages: 336
Length: 8.27w x 10.64h
ISBN-13: 9781844254835
ISBN: 1844254836
Catalog ID: 146625

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