The Aleko was a huge improvement over previous Moskvitch models, which were durable but old-fashioned sedans (saloons) and station wagons (estates) with rear-wheel drive and a solid rear axle, and had no common parts with them apart from the engine and some other minor details.

However, surprisingly for them, the Minister of Automobile Industry required them to cease all work on the unfinished project and instead create a front-wheel drive car with its upper part identical to that of the French Simca 1307, which was favoured by him.

It almost became the first front-wheel drive hatchback of the Soviet Union, but due to the fact that its development took a further two years for Moskvitch to set up the manufacturing, the Lada Samara arrived first.

Although the M-2141 had a more comfortable design than the Samara, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 followed by an economic crisis, financial mismanagement and disruptions in the work of the company caused a decline in assembling quality in the 1990s and damaged the reputation of this car in the markets.

In 2001 the aging M-2141, designed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and lacking modern airbags and seatbelts with pretensioners, was awarded zero stars out of a possible four by the new Russian ARCAP safety assessment program, but the reviewers pointed out that for a 20-year-old car it showed an "excellent" crash-test result.

[6][7] Before 1991, AZLK designers also created the four-wheel-drive Moskvich-21416SE and a sedan version of the M-2141 equipped with a different steering wheel and an electronic instrument cluster that was publicly demonstrated in 1990,[8] but none of these cars were put into series production due to the hardships brought by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A version with the wheelbase extended by 20 cm (7.9 in) called the Yury Dolgorukiy (2141Y2 Юрий Долгорукий; 1997–2002, named after the historic Grand Prince of Kiev) was also built, albeit only in small numbers.