The Moscow Transport Museum has restored an old LAZ-697M Tourist bus to factory condition. reported On the Moscow City Hall website.
Restoration work took the complex for about a year. The bus had to be taken apart and some of the missing parts had to be recreated. The interior of the bus was completely recreated and the engine was overhauled. To renew the fabric of the interior, we had to examine more than a thousand samples of modern materials.
The LAZ-697M bus was produced in the USSR at the Lvov Bus Plant from 1970 to 1975; More than 7.1 thousand of these vehicles were collected. The “Tourist” modification with soft seats and manually opening hinged doors was used to serve tourist groups and intercity flights.
Restored for the Moscow Transport Museum, the vehicle entered the 6th Moscow bus depot after its launch in 1973 and was used as a service vehicle by the Aremkuz plant from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.
Previously it was known that AvtoVAZ supplied Special versions of Lada Vesta and Niva equipped with tourist equipment.