Is the Lada now a classic car?
The classic car speeds through the English countryside, a lovingly-maintained example of motoring heritage.
It rounds a left-hand bend, negotiates a tight right corner, and gracefully dips out of view, a petrol-fuelled gazelle.
This is a collectable automobile that has seen its value soar in recent years. Proud owner Ed Hughes is a very happy man.
Yet the 45-year-old's set of wheels isn't what most people would imagine when they think of a classic car. It isn't a vintage Ferrari, Lamborghini or Jaguar, for example.
Instead, it's a 1994 Lada Riva, the boxy, four-door Russian runabout that regularly features in "worst cars of all time" lists.
While some might scoff at the suggestion that a Lada Riva is a classic car, it does in fact meet the generally agreed criteria - it is an old car that is no longer in production, and there is enough interest in the vehicle for it now to be collectable rather than scrapped.
And like any classic car worth its salt, there is money to be made, although not Ferrari-style tens of millions. Mr Hughes bought his red Riva 14 years ago for £50. It's now worth £2,000.
As the global classic car industry continues to grow strongly, an increasing number of previously unheralded cars are now being avidly collected. But why the Lada Riva?
'Fashion statement'
Mr Hughes, who gave up a career in teaching to write full-time for Practical Classics magazine, admits that Ladas were "deeply unfashionable" for years. But as his father had owned a few of the Soviet cars when he was growing up, Mr Hughes says "he'd always liked them".
So in the late 1990s he started buying Ladas, including the Riva, which was available in the UK from 1983 to 1997.
