My Dad bought a brand new classic 1200cc in 1974 it was in racing green and I can still remember it's registration JAO 76N. I think that they were fairly new in the UK then and did not have the image that they would later get. He kept it 5 years and never had any trouble with it but upgraded to a new MK4 Cortina 2.0 GL estate. The main things I can remember about the Lada is that my dad fitted one of those cartridge cassette players that had massive cassettes, my favourite was one by Chopin at the time, also the car used to sound like a washing machine spin drying when it was up to cruising speed on the M6, what a racket but then again a low powered heavy car it's to be expected.