It was considered to be the first Soviet hatchback (released about a decade before the well-known Lada Samara), though the car actually possesses a station wagon body wherein the "D" pillar has its own support and does not gain from weight reduction (which would position the model more in the liftback family).

The Kombi was a notable sales success within the USSR between 1974 and 1980 due to its durability, off-road capability, and increased carrying capacity.

[3] Its popularity was also helped by limited competition – station wagon variants of the Lada, Moscow-built Moskvitch, and Volga were in short supply and not as easy to buy as the Kombi.

As the Soviet Union collapsed, IZh was first privatized as the open joint stock company "Izhevsk" and slowly started converting their automotive production lines to other kinds of manufacture, such as firearms.

On August 23, 2018, the arms manufacturer Kalashnikov presented an electric car with exterior design closely based on that of the Izh 2125.