Lada’s Bold “Revolution" Leaves the World Stunned
While the West chases electric dreams, hydrogen fantasies and self-driving ambitions, Russia’s automotive stalwart АвтоВАЗ has chosen an entirely different path—straight back to the Japan of the 1980s.
The latest Lada Iskra arrives with a feature the factory claims will quite literally sweep customers off their feet: the fuel filler flap can now be opened from inside the cabin. Yes, really.
At the grand unveiling, the red cloth wasn’t pulled away from a new safety system, a cutting-edge infotainment suite, or even a fresh powertrain. Instead, all spotlights converged on a lever tucked discreetly by the driver’s door sill. Tug it once and you usher in, according to АвтоВАЗ, a new era in motoring. “This solution spares drivers from dirty hands and elevates comfort to a new level,” engineers declared with the air of having reinvented the wheel.
But the so-called revolution doesn’t stop there. On the inside of the flap lurks a hook, designed to hold the fuel cap during refueling—a convenience that became standard in Europe back when Chernobyl was still smoldering. Looking ahead, the factory hints that the same opening could be adapted for an LPG conversion system, because why not, once you’re on a roll.
Against this backdrop of retro-futurism, the phrase “fuel tank capacity: 50 liters” reads like a wistful echo from the past, a time when there was still hope that a Lada might go just as far on a tank as its rivals.
