Let's Find Out How Much Power a 45-Year-Old, 40-Horsepower Soviet Car Makes Today
To give you an idea of how bad the Ukrainians were at building a car, let me just say that the predecessor of the 1971 Zaporozhets 968, the Fiat 600-based ZAZ 965, was banned from Hungary. The Soviet-controlled Hungarian government told the slightly more Soviet Ukrainian government 'thanks, but no thanks.'
All in all, the 968 was not a bad concept, at least as far as weird NSU clones went. It was rear-engined, air-cooled, with a fake grille and a fender-mounted mirror, JDM style. Unfortunately, it was still made of cheap materials, and badly. As a result, it never gained popularity, which makes finding a good survivor today rather difficult.
Introduced in 1971, the 968 had a 1.2-liter engine with a single-barrel carburetor and a claimed output of 40 horsepower.
Attila's 1973 car sat for 19 years before he decided to give it a second life. Now, Hungarian car magazine Totalcar's dyno test has proven that with a refreshed, but certainly not rebuilt engine, the ZAZ still puts down around 32 horsepower. The video below has no captions, so hope you've been practicing your Hungarian.
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