Outside of the Eastern Bloc, Ladas were aimed squarely at the budget end of the market, where they were often as little as half the price of contemporary Western vehicles of the period.

[5] Automaker AvtoVAZ was formed from a collaboration between Fiat and the Soviet Vneshtorg (Department of Foreign Trade), and is based in the city of Tolyatti on the Volga River.

The car was given heavier steel body panels and strengthened components, which improved reliability on bumpy roads and in the harsh winters of the Soviet Union.

[9] When the cars began to be exported on foreign markets, the Zhiguli designation was found to be inappropriate, as it was hard to pronounce for non-Russian speakers, and it was said to resemble the word gigolo too closely.

Due to the scarcity of auto-repair shops in the Soviet Union, Ladas were designed to be easily maintained by their owners.

[2] The rugged Lada was popular in Europe, Canada, and South America for customers looking for more affordable alternatives to local brands, and sales of the new cars were extremely successful, reaching as far as New Zealand.

More reliable and up-to-date front and rear suspension with increased ground clearance, a modernized transmission, and recessed door handles were also fitted.

In the second half of the 1990s, efforts were made to improve build quality, but in 1999, nearly 50,000 instances occurred of cars being assembled with missing parts.

The Kalina had been originally designed in the early 1990s, and its launch was repeatedly delayed, exemplifying the company's difficulty in bringing products to market in time.

[22] Production of the Vesta, based on a new B\C platform developed by AvtoVAZ in cooperation with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, started on 25 September 2015, at Lada Izhevsk manufacturing site.

[25] In January 2021, after a company revamp, Renault said it would integrate Lada and sister brand Dacia into a Lada-Dacia business unit.

[26][27] In May 2022, due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Renault sold its controlling stake to a state-owned entity, NAMI, for one symbolic Rouble.

[citation needed] Business Insider reported that as a result of international sanctions imposed following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lada switched to producing vehicles with no airbags,[31] similar to new cars in Latin America, including the Kia Rio, Kia Picanto, Hyundai Grand i10, Mazda 2, Chevrolet Spark and the Chevrolet Onix, as neither the frontal airbag nor anti-lock braking systems (ABS) in new cars are compulsory in many Latin American countries.

[3] In 2004, AvtoVAZ officially ended the use of multiple designations for the Russian market, unifying from then on, all its products under the Lada brand.