Izh 2125

The Izh-2125 "Kombi" (Russian: ИЖ-2125 Комби, short for "combination") is a small family car produced by the Soviet/Russian car manufacturer IZh from 1973 to 1997. It is the first liftback of Russian/Soviet origin. It was based on an Izhevsk-modified Moskvitch 412, with the first prototype released in 1966 as a small family car. Modern retrospectives often consider the Izh-2125 to be the first Soviet hatchback, released about a decade before the well-known VAZ-2108 Lada Samara, though the car actually possesses a station wagon body with heavily sloped D-pillar; in modern Russian literature the car is usually referred to as a liftback. In Soviet literature, "Kombi" was used both as the Izh-2125's own nameplate, added as a badge to its tailgate after the 1982 facelift, and as the definition of its body style at the same time, which was also used for other cars with similar architecture like the Saab 900 combi coupé line. 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. It was the first Izh car sold for export. 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. In 1982, the Kombi received a facelift, along with the Izh-produced Moskvitch-412 and Izh 2715 panel van and was then renamed into Izh-21251.. The chrome grille with East German VER headlights (the exact same units as the Wartburg 353 used; the Izh-2125 was the only Izhevsk model to use them) was replaced with a black-painted metal grille with round headlights, the original logo with white circle in a blue square was replaced with a "ИЖ" wordmark in white font, the side markers/turn...