[Joz]

After looking at the Car Scene in Nigeria thread, I have no doubts that I will be a happy man at the end of this excercise.

Need to quickly know a few things about the Russian car market. I have the figures and stats with me. What I am looking for is more dope on the soft issues and a few technical issues.

Info I am looking for is stuff like, who is the primary user of passenger cars there? Their Marital Status, Age group, Gender, Occupation etc. What kind of cars are popular among them? And any such info which you have observed is welcome.

On the technical front, are there any significant changes the vehicles sold there have - to adapt to the climate, terrain, usage habits etc.

And yeah, any experiences on supercar spotting, racing etc. will be a delight. I remember the Ferrari & Masserati entering the Russian market in style by driving 10,000 km all the way through Northern Europe. This was a few years back. With big tickets millionaires on the rise, I am sure there is a lot happening out there.

ps: Will be going there in a few weeks time, so do post some experiences of conducting business and getting around there.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.
Jose

[Mpower]

Dont be surprised if you see a lots of Premier 118NE lookalikes there made by Lada.

[Stratos]

Believe me, Russia has a lot and I mean a lott of exotic cars running on their roads!

[karthik247]

Should be way better than the Nigeria experience...

[ranjan united]

There's a Rolls Royce showroom right across from the Kremlin. So much for communism.

[ajmat]

Please find link here. Have PM'd article to you

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...24/wcars24.xml

[islero]

Russia has a pretty funny car scene, from the articles I have read.

There are the bottom-end Volgas and Moskviches runnign around and sharing road space with blinged BMW's and Mercs and Evo's and the like

[Ram]

The Russians (erstwhile Soviets) had been denied the individualistic trappings of modern society, at the expense of socialist ones like high-speed trains and high-rise ghettoes. They used to queue up for bread, cake and clothes.
There were waiting lists for everything. The typical black marketeer would sell his place in the queue for money.
A bachelor boy and a bachelor girl had to wait for the government to "sanction" them an apartment, so that they could marry and settle in life.

Suddenly one day...
The Berlin Wall evaporated and the USSR was dismantled.
A new middle-class was born, with the desires and motives typical of developed and developing world, middle-classes!.

Unable to sustain their growth, the queues in Russia are back, this time around for the Ford Focus car. Black marketeering is back. People dont want the Lada (Premier 118NE-like car) anymore.

Remember 1993, when hordes of hamare-log dumped substituted their old Padminis and 118NEs and went for Maruti 1000s and Zens and the new 1.3 litre Esteem?

Back then, even Maruti had a shameless 800TK 'Tatkal' model, to enjoy the premiums that the blackmarket business of those days commanded.

[Joz]

From what i read in the article posted by Ajit and the inputs from Ram, there is a considerable demand supply gap for the foreign cars. The consumers there are more inclined to spend their money on a car than a house, because getting a flat from the governement takes ages and buying one on your own is impossible due to the soaring real estate prices. (Moscow apparently is among the costliest cities in the world).

The figures I have shows that the market went down by a -3.8 % in 2005 (wonder why) but grew by 9.9 % in 2004. AvtoVAZ which makes the Lada still has a strong 67 % of the market. Their share although, is on a decline, because of the increasing demand for foreign makes - partly because of the social image thats attached to them and partly because of the vehicle in itself.

In the 80's and early 90's the Lada's used to be dominate the rally scene there. I remember seeing a video once, where the cars used to topple at almost every other corner.

Also, Mahindra was looking at launching the Scorpio in Russia about a year back. Any idea how they fared?

Thanks a ton for all the inputs people. Keep them coming.

Cheers,
Jose

[r_nairtvm]

I was really sad to read this news in one of the Reuters RSS feed

Not that Lada was something extra ordinary, but the times I grew up, there was still a lot of anti colonial feelings and USSR was then synonimus with being anti colonial and in India there was a lot of good will for Socialism.

So any thing Soviet was looked up on with reverence and respect (may be the growing up in Kerala with its 'red brigades' had something to do with this feeling).

I am up loading a PDF version of the article for the reading pleasure of those interested and would end this with a Quote from the article itself

Some Russians, however, are unlikely ever to be appeased

"You see all these fancy foreign models in Russia now but we used to be proud to drive our own cars," said Nikolai Peshkov, a businessman from Izhevsk, the city where the last 2107s were made in Russia. "I suppose there was no real choice then, but the Zhiguli (Lada Classic) was the real dream. If you had one, you had respect."

In a way the above reflects the thoughts/feelings some TBHPians have in preserving there Landmasters and Ambassodors et al.

Best Regards & Drive/Ride Safe

Ram