Nothing pleases so much as a high assessment of the results of the creation of their own hands and personal achievements. Auto racing is not only a competition of the professional qualities of car racers, teams of technical equipment and preparations for the performance of cars also enter into an acute struggle for primacy.
A special category of sports car racing is occupied by competitions using models of the "buggy" type. Having appeared in 1950 as a race on cars converted from worn out and unusable “cars”, this sport, even with the development of professional models, has not lost fans who create their own exclusive models of high-speed maneuverable all-terrain vehicles for cross-country competitions from serial products of the automobile industry. Often, to create their masterpieces, they do not use used cars, but rather recent options with a high supply of unexpended motor resources.
Recently, interest in this type of machine has increased not only from professional athletes. Walking variants of the “buggy” with the onset of warm days can increasingly be found not only in off-road conditions, but even in the urban crowd. More than one sophisticated hatchback or expensive crossover is not able to provide the youth category with fans of drive and adrenaline, that sense of freedom and power over speed and space like a motorcycle, scooter, and now “buggy”. The appearance on the domestic market of factory production models for a wide category of users does not stop those who want to assemble their own unique car from Lada or Zaporozhets parts, practical and reliable are buggies from Oka.
The pages of various sites and forums are full of these models, because assembling a buggy from Oka requires an affordable list of equipment, and a list of the most basic parts is so small that you can save on the purchase of a full-fledged car by limiting yourself to the main components and mechanisms of a second-hand automobile. In the pursuit of minimizing costs, it is worth remembering a stingy person who pays twice, and not get carried away with the purchase of large units and assemblies of dubious quality.
For the do-it-yourself version of the buggy, you can take parts of the suspension besides the engine and gearbox from the Oka, the dashboard of the domestic subcompact will fit nicely into the "interior" of your car. Some masters manage to remake native VAZ (SeAZ) -1111 wheels (Oka) under wide tires, but it is less troublesome and much more reliable to use wheels from an ATV than to cut out its central part from a disk for subsequent welding two into one.
With an abundance of ready-made drawings of design decisions and instructions on how to make a buggy from Oka, the charm of "homemade" is the ability to experiment and customize the future car to your needs. But fantasizing is not worth getting carried away and it is better to completely abandon the excessive initiative in terms of ensuring security, mass distribution and the principles of building governing bodies. These points should be taken under special control of compliance with quality and manufacturing accuracy.
Usually, as the simplest to assemble, single-seat structures with a rear engine are used. But two-seater cars look very attractive as a walking variant of the buggy from Oka, because the power of a 33-horsepower engine is quite enough for traveling on sand and off-road not only for two pilots, but also for transporting their luggage, although increasing the linear dimensions will require additional reinforcement of the design body frames.
The main skills that buggy collectors must master are welding and bending metal pipes, the main material for the car body frame. Having patience, you can get a pretty respectable version of the buggy that can not only confirm the skill of the manufacturer, but also adequately perform at the competition.
As a rule, having achieved the first successful results in the production of buggy from Oka, the homegrown masters of the "garage automobile industry" do not stop there. Thanks to the AvtoVAZ conveyor, which has released a huge number of different options and modifications for 21 years of production of an inexpensive supercompact subcompact, adherents of the buggy have received full-fledged material for their hobbies for many years of creativity.