2005 Mara Zorya 1.1e 9V
After the demise of the Tovarish after a 40+ years production run due to increased Archanan safety requirements at the turn of the millennium, Mara was left without an economical entry level city runabout (since the almost 4m 3-door Zvezda hatchback could hardly be called that).
After the odd abortive attempt to create a small economy car in the 1990s to replace the Tovarish, the all-new Zorya (‘dawn’) finally saw the light of day in the early 2000s. Being a modern construction, it went on sale immediately in all of Mara’s export markets as well.
Outside Archana, the Zorya was often marketed as particularly eco-friendly and was thus commonly depicted (and, to an extent, ordered) in various shades of green
The Zorya was equipped with an all-new and all-aluminium I3 engine which was called Troika 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.
Despite a pretty good fuel economy of around 4.5l/100 km, continually rising fuel prices right after the Zorya’s launch led Mara engineers to investigate further options to increase fuel economy. The result was adding a small turbocharger to the engine which not only increased power by 20% but also reduced fuel consumption well below the 4l/100 km mark.
Resource conservation was nothing new to Archanans - except for a brief period in the 1990s - but the biggest challenge for the 2000s was putting positive connotations to it. Hence, the Zorya 1.1e was marketed with silly ads such as the following:
Another ad series featured a bunch of animated aluminium beverage cans with attitude which see a parked Zorya and discuss which part of the car body they want to become once recycled. (“In my next life, I want to become part of the bonnet!” - "Of course you would! You always want to go headfirst into anything! …")
In any case, the lessons learned in developing the Troika engine and its fuel-saving turbo led to further research for a replacement of the reliable but comparably thirsty Progress I4 engine.
*I am not making this up, check wikipedia: Troika (driving) - Wikipedia