1998 Mara Zvezda C 1.1i 9V
Mara’s abortive attempt at creating a small city car replacement for the ancient ageing Tovarish in the mid 1990s left them with a reasonably well-developed, reasonably modern and quite efficient 3-cylinder engine (‘Troika’), but no car to put it in. Hence, they decided to equip the base model Zvezda hatchbacks and sedans in their first facelift after five years with the Troika engine instead of using the same hefty iron-block 1.8l DAOHC Progress I4 engine as the higher spec models.
Only modest exterior changes were applied to the first Zvezda facelift
The Troika was an all-new and all-aluminium I3 engine, named after the traditional Archanan way of harness driving a carriage with three horses side-by-side*. As a compromise between cost and fuel efficiency, the engine had 3 valves per cylinder, leading to a unique 9V engine layout. Especially in export tune for 95 RON, the performance was at least adequate, and fuel economy much improved over the Progress I4.
The downside was that the Troika was not really cheaper to manufacture than the less sophisticated Progress, so the base Zvezda models kept their - albeit already very competitive - sub AM$13k price point in the facelift, despite the engine downgrade. Due do a looming steel shortage in Archana, the facelifted Zvezdas also received aluminium panels in a few selected areas.
*I am not making this up, check wikipedia Troika (driving) - Wikipedia