Reader's letter of the day

From today's FT:

Sir, Your excellent account of the events unfolding with the car manufacturers of Detroit reminds me of Russian government protection for AvtoVAZ, maker of Lada cars. The Russian story lacked the flamboyance of publicly staged performances - but then who can beat the Americans in this department?

For the last decade Russian officials levied taxes on the importers of passenger vehicles with a view to helping AvtoVAZ. Guess the result? AvtoVAZ continues to produce the cars that are slight variations of the Fiat 124 that itself was a decent motor car for the early 1960s.*

Anton Krylov, London.

* My Dad bought one of these in the mid-1970s, it was still pretty decent then. But I doubt they export very many, i.e. Russians get poor value for money and the overall net increase in Russian exports is probably nil.