A look back at our gone, but not forgotten, 1993 Lada Niva Project, originally published on 20 December 2012

The 1993 Lada Niva – восстановление  (Recovery)

The first order of business in recovering the Lada was to arrange a tow-dolly from U-Haul. This proved to be a bit of a challenge, because using their online booking system had no listing for a Lada, of any sort. Being an American based business this comes as no real surprise, so I tried the telephone booking, keeping a backup plan in mind.

That too was an interesting exchange:

I placed my reservation with U-haul’s US based booking center and was kindly asked, “Now sir, what exactly is a Lada Miva?” After some explanation, we settled on booking it in as a 1993 Suzuki Sidekick… LOL. I think he was mildly suspicious once I said built by Russians before the wall fell…

After that we were all set for our pickup, bright and early on Saturday morning.

November 10^th arrived, clear, sunny and cold, but the roads were an absolute mess, densely packed ice had rendered the streets a skating rink, indeed a fine time to pull a trailer! Most importantly, it would make a fine adventure!

The pickup at the 50^th Street, Edmonton U-Haul spot went without issue, and we were soon underway in the 2003 SVT Lightning to recover our prized “1993 Suzuki  Sidekick” ahem, Lada Niva Cossack. We made our way to Leduc without issue, making out much better than the plethora of ditched vehicles passed on the trip.

The Lada was nestled between an 8 foot high fence and a garage that faced out to the single lane alleyway. Shawn and I figured the best bet would be to try and gently drive the Niva out of that spot and onto the tow dolly, assuming we could make it run of course. We set to work quickly, slaving the dead Lada battery to the Lightning’s potent charging system while cranking up the 1.6L Fiat designed engine. After a few attempts with no real success we decided to stop messing around and made a quick trip to the nearby Canadian Tire for some parts and a fresh battery.

Better prepared, we returned with a battery, new fuel filters, a can of ether, and 10 Liters of gasoline. The engine really wanted to run with the new parts and a squirt or two of ether, but we weren’t getting fuel flow up to the carburetor. Since we were on a deadline to return the dolly, I simply backed the dolly in front of the Lada, Shawn popped it into Low Range and used the absence of a neutral safety switch to “drive” on to the dolly using the starter and new battery.

The little Niva was strapped down and ready in minutes, and with the Center Differential in Neutral we were able to tow without having the front wheels spin. A quick tug test and inspection at the nearby CO-OP gas bar and we were underway back north.

While travelling up Highway 2 a fellow in a Toyota 4×4 made a special point of lingering next to us as we rolled along, and then pulled ahead to wave and give us a hearty “thumbs-up”. It seems we weren’t the only Lada enthusiasts on the road that day.

Despite the awful roads and delays due to wrecks, we safely delivered the Lada to Grand Touring Concepts and returned the dolly to U-Haul without incident. Next up it was time to assess what we had, and what needed to be repaired.