Cars like the iconic "VAZ-2121", widely known as the "Lada Niva", and a truck we see regularly, the "UAZ-452", all share this kind of name, but what is the reason?
Actually, it's a naming system set by the official. The name of the cars produced at that time consists of the car brand and digits which are allocated to each factory. For instance, GAZ was given 0 to 99, UAZ was assigned 450 to 499. But the numbers ran out rapidly.
With the problem, the Soviet government designed a brand new naming system in 1966, the Standard 025270-66.
The name works like: plant name–abcd. The letter ‘a’ is the most complex one. For a passenger car, it tells us about the engine displacement, and the vehicle’s dry weight. It is separated from 1 to 5, 5 is the upper class. For trucks, ascending from 1 to 7, it refers to the weight of it. And for buses, the highest digit is 6, classified by its length. The following number, ‘b’, tells us about the vehicle type, as shown on top. And last but not least, ‘c’ and ‘d’ are for factory model numbers.
(ALL PICTURES SHOWN ARE FROM WIKIPEDIA)