AS A growing number of global car makers open up shop, the definition of “Made in Russia” — previously meaning dreadful — is changing.

A little over a decade ago, it seemed like the gates of the Moskvich factory on the southern fringes of Moscow never closed. Fresh batches of cars every Soviet dreamed of owning poured through this portal, but after years of economic turmoil and mismanagement that followed the disintegration of the USSR, the gates seem rusted shut.

Now a venture led by Renault in the sprawling complex will breathe life into its empty hangars. The company will invest £145 million in its section of the plant, where workers are making an assembly line that will produce 60,000 budget vehicles per year.

The French car maker is not alone in transforming the Russian motor industry and the tastes of consumers. Restrictive import duties and higher production costs in the West have meant that foreign brands remain priced out of reach of most Russians, so companies such as Ford and General Motors decided to produce their models here.

In 2002 Ford set up an £83 million Focus assembly facility just outside St Petersburg, lowering the model’s cost on the domestic market by £556 and making it one of the most popular foreign brands sold.

In partnership with the maker of the ubiquitous Lada, General Motors opened a £185 million plant in Tolyatti, a city in the Volga region, and now produces some 55,000 Chevrolet Nivas a year, selling for less than £5,000. GM’s joint venture with Avtovaz started producing a second model in September. Essentially an Opel Astra sedan with a cheaper engine, the company wants to sell the Chevrolet Viva for as little as £5,564.

“The more Russian cars the merrier,” says Matt Donnelly, a Briton who runs a network of foreign-brand car dealerships in Moscow. “People are starting to get used to the fact that cars in Russia don’t have to be bad, but the fact is that they are popular because they are cheaper.”

This is not to say that Russians’ preference for flamboyant cars has diminished — a Bentley dealership opened in Moscow last year — but a telling sign that changes are afoot, at least for mass consumers, came in a statistical tilt this summer, when imports of new cars exceeded imports of used cars for the first time.

For Donnelly, that means more business — and for Western car makers it means the Russian market is nearly ripe for its wares.

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