Ока: Кеңес Одағының қалалық автокөлігі

Russian city car

The Lada Оkа (VAZ 1111, SeAZ 1111, КаmАZ 1111, Astro 11301) (Ока (ВАЗ 1111, СеАЗ 1111, КамАЗ 1111)) is a city car designed in the Soviet Union in the later part of the seventies by AvtoVAZ. It entered production in 1988 powered by a SOHC two cylinder engine. While developed at AutoVAZ by a team led by Yuri Kuteev, no production models were built there. Instead, manufacturing was outsourced to SeAZ factory in Serpukhov and ZMA in Naberezhnye Chelny (then owned by Kamaz and now owned by SeverstalAvto). Massive plans were in place for a new plant in Yelabuga, but these failed to materialize. The car was also produced in Azerbaijan by the Gyandzha Auto Plant. The name comes from the Oka River in Russia upon which Serpukhov is situated.

This affordable, lightweight and simple automobile replaced the air cooled, rear engined ZAZ Zaporozhets 966 968 series models as "the people's car". SeAZ factory specialized in building purpose built vehicles for handicapped drivers and by the 1970s their offering was the S 3D, a spartan, boxy two seat sedan powered by a motorcycle engine. Despite being noisy and smoky, the S 3D was, nevertheless, very popular with mobility challenged drivers many of whom were World War II veterans and, being such, received their vehicles free of charge. When engineers in Serpukhov under factory manager Alexander Popov (who told Minavtoprom (the automotive ministry) SeAZ needed a new product) conceived the Oka, they turned to their VAZ colleagues for help. French supermini Renault 5; the inspiration, however, was limited only to the size and overall proportions, and the car was different in design. The Soviet Ministry preferred the Oka over other three door microcars designed by SeAZ and NAMI, as well as over a different, futuristic variant of the new car proposed by Vereschagin in 1984. Tightly restricted by project specifications, he did his work believing that his creation had little chance of seeing production. In the event, however, he was proven wrong, as the Oka's overall acceptable operating characteristics and low price resulted in some 700,000 examples rolling off the assembly line over a period of nearly two decades. During test drives on roads and in the Caucasus Mountains, the car proved to have good handling, roadholding and, surprisingly for a vehicle of its size, excellent off road capabilities. In 2002 the car was awarded zero stars out of a possible four by the Russian ARCAP safety assessment program; the version built in the ZMA factory was found to be marginally safer than the one built by SeAZ. As of 2006, there were four versions of Oka distributed: basic VAZ 11113 Oka made by either ZMA (Naberezhnye Chelny) or SeAZ factory (33 hp, max, 3.2 litres per 100 km), "custom" VAZ 11301 Astro (49 hp) and VAZ 11113 27 Toyma a light delivery vehicle with a cargo compartment instead of two rear seats. Series production of the Oka ended in Russia in 2008, when SeAZ built the last batch of Okas with Chinese EURO 2 engines. In the summer of 2023, the Russian government started talking about a possible revival of the brand.

Its road agility and acceleration rate (quite surprising for its appeal) prevented it from taking Zaporozhets' place in folklore (which takes its delight in the awkwardness and slow speed of the former). Its small size and weight (635 kilograms), however, gave birth to a multitude of funny (and often true) stories involving several men carrying an Oka away from its parking place. Special modifications for disabled people (missing one or both legs or one arm) were being distributed for free through the Soviet Union's (and later Russia's) social service system. Like its brethren VW Beetle, it often attracts the sentiment of the owner, so various customised and tuned versions are often seen at local exotic car shows.

As of 2019, an American company called Oka Auto USA owned by MIROX, and located in Las Vegas, Nevada, offered electrically powered Okas for the US neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) market called the Oka NEV ZEV. To conform to NEV regulations, the electric Oka's speed is limited to 25 mph.