94 actually:
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1982/32360/waz_2107_lada_1500.html
My parents had one of these, of the first batch to be sold here. Dead solid car, but rode like a tractor.
All the instrumentation and owner's manual were in Cyrillic letters, so everything was a bit of guess work.
It is a pretty exact replica of a Fiat, inside and out, just made a bit more sturdy.
See TreeGongfu, I grew up in a commie car, so I can't be all bad!
Back then the Japs and Russkies would blatantly copi anything, like the Chinks do today.
In 66 or 7 my parents bought one of the first Toyota Coronas sold here ( Yes, they were always ready to try on new stuff). We took a trip to France and the damned thing started to sputter.
So we crawled into a small auto shop in a French village, and the mechanics looked at this strange new car and shrugged in the Gallic way..........sorry, we can't do anything with that.
Then one popped the hood, looked at the engine and said: "Ahh Opel!"
It was a copy of an Opel record engine, which they knew very well how to repair, of course.