7th Dec 2005, 01:20

The thickness of the body panels, mentioned by the reviewer, reminded me of a true incident, which occurred in the mid 1990`s in the Republic of Georgia. An assassination attempt was conducted by unidentified rebels against the Georgian leader, Eduard Shevardnadze- as he was leaving the parliament building. The perpetrators had packed a green- coloured Lada Niva with explosives, and detonated them by remote control- just as Shevardnadze appeared. Television news at the time, showed Mr. Shevardnadze sitting in his singlet in a hospital chair, and looking dazed. His face and hands were cut and streaked with blood. What had happened, was that the Niva did NOT blow apart- instead, only the window glass shattered, and Shevardnadze was slightly injured by flying glass. The miscalculation by the perpetrators, was to use a Niva as a car bomb- any other car would have probably disintegrated (as the rebels would have intended), and the Georgian leader would have been killed. I have a photo from a news clipping, from that time, showing the Niva just after the event. The car is badly burnt, with all the windows blown out, but the entire body shell is still intact. So next time someone asks you whether the Niva is tough, tell them about this factual incident. No wonder many people think of the Niva as an army tank!