The Lada Niva or VAZ-2121 (Russian: Лада Нива, Niva (нива) is the Russian word for "crop field") is an off-road vehicle built by Soviet/Russian automaker AvtoVAZ. The car is very popular in its home country. It is also popular in Canada (though withdrawn from sale in 1998), South America, Iceland, and other regions where the terrain requires a robust and tough car for a reasonable price. In Australia, popularity is limited as the vehicle is manufactured for a very different climate and as such items such as air conditioning were omitted from the specifications, limiting its appeal.
The car was also called the Lada Sport in Iceland and Lada Taiga in Austria.
It was one of the first mass production off-road vehicles to feature a unibody architecture (the first was GAZ-M-72 in 1955), independent front suspension and coil suspension, and is a predecessor to current crossover SUVs which nearly all follow this format.
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