Monty273 - Solved: Baijah Stalker (2007)

[Carnut]

Czech-built?

[kwgibbs]

Austrian?

[el_monty]

- France
- Spain
- Belgium
- Italy (but has a Fiat engine)
- Greece
- Switzerland
- Scandinavia
- Portugal
- Czech Republic
- Austria

[Carnut]

Poland?

[el_monty]

Sorry, kwgibbs had already said Poland but I missed it on the list

- France
- Poland
- Spain
- Belgium
- Italy (but has a Fiat engine)
- Greece
- Switzerland
- Scandinavia
- Portugal
- Czech Republic
- Austria

[kwgibbs]

Hungary?

[Carnut]

Is it from a former Eastern Bloc country?

[el_monty]

- France
- Poland
- Spain
- Belgium
- Italy (but has a Fiat engine)
- Greece
- Switzerland
- Scandinavia
- Portugal
- Czech Republic
- Austria
- Hungary

Is it from a former Eastern Bloc country?

It's not from an Eastern Bloc country, but it uses many elements from a car of an Eastern Bloc manufacturer.

[el_monty]

Sorry I need to add a correction. I don't have much information but going over it again it seems that the intention of the manufacturer was to use a Fiat engine for production, but this first prototype (which is all that was built) actually has an Eastern Bloc engine under the bonnet too.

[kwgibbs]

Romania?

[el_monty]

Romania?

The engine is not from Romania.

[Carnut]

Russian?

[el_monty]

Yes, it's based on a Russian car. But I repeat, its nationality is not Russian.

[Carnut]

There aren't many countries left that we havn't tried and were not part of the Eastern Bloc.
There's Britain but with LHD it's probably not that; there the little states like Andorra and Liechtenstein - but let's try Holland first!

[el_monty]

Have another look to see if there's any significant country missing from this list  ;):

- France
- Poland
- Spain
- Belgium
- Italy (a Fiat engine was planned for production)
- Greece
- Switzerland
- Scandinavia
- Portugal
- Czech Republic
- Austria
- Hungary
- Russia (but this prototype uses a Russian engine)
- Rest of former Eastern Bloc
- Netherlands

[el_monty]

Also:

Romania?

This car doesn't have any Romanian elements in it, but there is a tenuous connection to a Romanian car. I haven't been able to find any explicit references to this connection anywhere, but it must exist, and it will be easy to show once the puzzle has been solved.

[Carnut]

Germany?
For some reason I thought I'd already asked that and crossed it off but clearly not!

[Carnut]

I've found this car pictured below, called a Travec Tecdrah TTi (never heard of it before!) which looks far too similar for it not to be related/connected:

[Carnut]

And now I've found this.  It's called a Baijah Stalker made by the (apparently) Russian off-roader specialist Baijah under the project name "Thundra", to be produced with Fiat Panda 4x4 mechanicals, although I believe this prototype is based on a Lada Niva.

Here are some photos of the Baijah Stalker, the last of which looks like a production version:

[el_monty]

Bravo! You solved the riddle.
The information I have read is that Baijah Automotive Gmbh was that it was a German company, founded in Bad Neuheim by one Marcus Nöske, and that they used to import UAZ models (the classic 469 and the Patriot), swapping the engines for EU-built units to comply with emissions regulations, and renamed them Baijah Taigah and Tulos respectively. Then in 2007 they presented this car, called Stalker, as a prototype based on a Lada Niva but announcing that when it went into production they would use the powertrain of a Fiat Panda 4x4. I wasn't able to find anything else about the Stalker, and since I had read that Baijah went under in 2008, I assumed that no more units were actually produced. You seem to have found another one with Russian plates, and I have no idea where and when that has been produced or if it's still a Lada Niva underneath.
What I did notice as I tried to research more about this car was, as you pointed out, that the bodywork is almost the same as that of the Travec Tecdrah, which had been a puzzle before (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/solved-djetset-580-travec-tecdrah/). The Tecdrah is based on the Dacia Duster, and was developed by another German company called Travec Automotive GmbH. I haven't been able to find any source that links Baijah and Travec explicitly, but since the similarity of the bodywork is obvious, I assumed that the explanation must be that after the Stalker project fell through, Baijah sold the design to Travec, which then re-engineered it to adapt it to the Duster platform. Again, I don't know where that leaves that Russian Stalker that you found.

[Carnut]

The plot thickens, as if you follow the link to Djetset's earlier Apal puzzle there you will find pictures of the Apal Stalker, from which the Tecdrah was developed!  That was made in fibreglass, whilst the Tecdrah was in ABS, but it's back to fibreglass for the Beijah!  Seems there's a whole family of these things!

Apal Stalker:

[el_monty]

OK now I see. It's clear the original version of the car is the Russian Apal Stalker, which came out in 2003, and Baijah must have intended to import that, swapping the engine for the Fiat one, a bit like they did with the UAZs.