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ZaporozhetsIn today's Russia, Zaporozhets (Запоро́жец) is still warmly remembered. It was the cheapest Soviet car and so the most affordable to common people; at the same time, it was rather sturdy and well suitable to Russian roads (or the lack thereof). The very looks of this car gave birth to several nicknames that stuck with it forever — "Zapor" (which is short for "Zaporozhets", but also means "constipation" in Russian), "hunchback" (because of the earlier model's bug-like form), "big-eared" (the car had air intakes on its sides to cool down the engine in the rear of the vehicle). Like the Volkswagen Beetle or East Germany's Trabant, Soviet Zaporozhets was destined to become a "people's car". It was first designed and built in 1958 at the ZAZ factory in Soviet Ukraine ("Zaporozhsky Avtomobilny Zavod", or Zaporozhsky Automobile Factory). The factory produced different types of Zaporozhets until 1994. The factory still exists, however, and currently produces the Tavria. Tavria is quite different in using front wheel drive and watercooling, whereas Zaporozhets had rear wheel drive (with engine in the rear) and aircooling. External links
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