In Fits and Starts, Factory Makes Last of Lemons

The Moskvich automobile, a monument to Soviet-era shoddiness, is dying. Few will lament its passing.

In the rogues’ gallery of crummy consumer goods, this stubby hatchback holds a place of honor. It gave new meaning to the concept “lemon.” Virtually every car that rolled off the assembly line--which ground to a halt early this year--was a clunker.

Alexei Kuznetsov, 25, is a typical Moskvich owner. He loathed his car.

The Kuznetsov family bought it new for $2,500 in 1992, when consumer goods were still scarce and they were glad to get it.

“It looked nice. It ran nice,” Kuznetsov recalled. “Everything was fine for the first 700 kilometers” (about 400 miles).

Then, in true Moskvich tradition, it began to fall apart. Within months, the Kuznetsovs were calling it the “tin can.”

“There was not a single day, not one day, when everything on my car worked right,” said Kuznetsov, a graduate student who just traded “up” to a 10-year-old Japanese import.

Pressed, Kuznetsov cited two good qualities: It was cheaper than other Russian cars. And it was roomy, which meant he could wait in relative comfort for what Russians call the “long spark”--the tow truck.

Russian drivers say the operating principle of the Moskvich is 5 to 1: For every mile you drive, you push for another five.

In four years, Kuznetsov replaced the shock absorbers four times, the gas gauge three times, the ignition, the generator, the starter, the entire electrical system, the clutch, the gearbox, and more.

By the time he sold the rusting beast to a bumpkin from the Moscow suburbs, Kuznetsov figures he’d spent around $6,000.

The Moskvich, one of just a few Russian makes, has the distinction of being pure Soviet design and engineering. Unlike competitors such as Zhiguli, it never even tried to adapt ideas from abroad.

It also has the distinction of being the lone Russian auto maker on verge of total extinction.

It won’t be mourned. The car was inflicted on a captive audience that, in Soviet times, had few other choices.

Times have changed. Imports are available. And other auto makers are trying--with mixed success and mixed degrees of enthusiasm--to adapt. Moskvich remains stubbornly unreformed. Like the car, the company itself seems bent on immobility.

Most of the workers at the assembly plant in Moscow--Moskvich means “Muscovite” -- are on unpaid leave, hoping for a government bailout and waiting for long overdue paychecks.

“The till is empty,” said Yelena Sayenko, an auto workers’ union spokeswoman. “There’s no money to pay wages.”

Management refused to talk. “There’s no story,” deputy Moskvich director Yuri Polekov said. “The plant is idle.”

In fact, the story is a painfully familiar one as Russia struggles to refashion the failed Soviet economy along the lines of Western capitalism: What to do with companies that just don’t work--and the thousands of families whose livelihoods depend on them.

Four years ago, the plant--officially called the Automobile Works of the Lenin Youth League--employed 20,000 people; more than 101,000 of the cheap little cars rolled off the assembly line.

This year, it made just 560 cars, filling half an order for new Moscow cabs before city officials decided charity had its limits--the cars were always in the shop--and switched to Volga sedans.

President Boris N. Yeltsin also made a stab at saving Moskvich, promising millions in the heat of his reelection campaign to restart the plant. Then post-election reality set in, and the pledge was retracted in a push to balance the ailing federal budget.

Yet another scheme to jump-start Moskvich was unveiled this week. The federal government, which owns 60% of Moskvich, said it would offer cars in payment of bonds issued to people in the early 1990s.

But people also have the option of taking cash and new bonds instead, and given Moskvich’s reputation, a lot of people may take the money and run.

In the meantime, the company totters along fitfully like one of its cars, cranking out a few spare parts and filling the odd special order, like one for a handful of custom-made pool tables.

Kuznetsov, the disgruntled driver, isn’t impressed.

“If their pool tables are anything like their cars,” he said, “then I’m giving up pool!”