The door greeted me with a slight play, but closed with that familiar Soviet "buc-kryak" sound that you can't confuse with anything else.
Inside, there's full-fledged space, like in a regular Patriot. You can forget about the "knees at your ears" pose; sitting in the second row is roomy. The Ulyanovsk folks didn't just mount the body on the donor chassis; they stretched the wheelbase from 2760 to 3000 mm. The car itself grew from 4647 to 5200 mm, and now in profile it's a really nice-looking machine. You couldn't say that about the Patriot before.
The pickup's bed isn't a record-holder in volume, rather standard, but the side height of 650 mm is just a song. Real Russian iron from Cherepovets rolled steel, which, as is known, is the coolest in the world. A real fortress of metal. The car is 220 kg heavier than the Patriot, but it also takes 200 kg more cargo, so the total gross weight increased by 420 kg. If it weren't for the engine from the Zavolzhye plant, which residents of the Volga banks have been tormenting for decades in search of at least some output, and if it weren't for the suspension, which wasn't designed but seemed to be accidentally found in the forest by two Ulyanovsk mushroom pickers, the UAZ PickUP could also drive. But it's still far from that.
DON'T HIT THE DYNAMICS
Even before starting, I decided to check the wipers. It turned out that for them to work, you have to constantly hold the lever with your finger—otherwise it hits the seal and returns back. Suppressing the urge to immediately disassemble the steering column and fix everything, I inserted the key into the ignition and merged into traffic.
Being the first to leave the traffic light didn't work out. You press the gas—the RPMs drop, and the engine stalls. Over time, I got used to it, just a few attempts... nothing terrible, the main thing is to press the accelerator more gently and remember that when overtaking. However, as befits an authentic car, the defects of the test pickup were floating: within a day, the pedal behaved normally.
And there was no desire to race anyway. To go straight, you first need to set the car straight, but it kept trying to veer to the side. I had to make 16 corrective steering movements per second. The steering wheel squeaked so much that after ten minutes I turned the radio to full volume, and after another fifteen, taking a pencil from my pocket, I shoved it into the plastic cover of the steering column. The squeak disappeared. It became a bit easier, if you can call it that on a trip where one hand holds the wiper lever, the other tries to keep the heavy wandering car in the lane, and a foot kicks the speaker that adjusts its own volume.
The last time I sat behind the wheel of a UAZ was a year ago, but how quickly I got out of the habit! This car is categorically unsuited for driving straight on asphalt. They say it goes away over time when the parts wear in...
SPECS: UAZ PICKUP
"WAI-WAI", "GIVE-GIVE"
Now about what you wanted to know about the UAZ PickUP but were afraid to ask. There's astonishing plastic here—its smell killed the flu virus that was just about to settle in my body. The ashtray is simply deadly: when I opened it, such a crash sounded that frightened people ran out of the neighboring house. And the engine, which out of resentment for life during break-in drinks 20 liters per hundred! I talked to this marginal, and it answered me: "I despise you, spoiled, overfed Muscovites! I despise the crisis and gas prices! Go to hell all of you..."—and fell silent. But it didn't stall.
Meanwhile, having engaged four-wheel drive and low range on the fourth try, I headed off-road. How pitifully the transfer case howled! "Wai-wai-wai", "give-give-give" and again "wai-wai". That's how Gypsy children beg for alms and how oligarchs groan in anticipation of the worst day of the crisis. My photographer and I, taking pity on the car, decided to limit ourselves to a short trip. And immediately got stuck. This heavy truck, without any electronic or mechanical traction assistance, is only good for plowing a rut in the snow by inertia—three meters forward, two back. To move successfully off-road, you need serious skills and full concentration. A moment of distraction—and one wheel is already spinning in the air, while another, diagonally opposite, sinks toward the center of the Earth.
And yet, for that kind of money, you can't buy anything decent. The UAZ PickUP has no competitors. You can't really list the Nissan Navara as its rival!
