Without getting into a discussion here on Soviet era cars, there wasn't much more than a change of grille and bumpers for the M21 Volga, SC. The earlier one featured a Soviet red star in the centre of the grille, but this was removed to make it more palatable for export..... It was Mk II Zephyr size and there was a lot of Ford influence throughout, including the layout of the dashboard. When I was there in 1972, they always reminded me in an odd way of the FE Holden, but maybe I had been away for too long! I would have thought the influence for Mr Putin's Zappo was the Corvair.