Let's Enter the World of Lucite Soviet Shift Knobs

Photo: Rory Carroll

If you spend any amount of time scrolling Etsy and eBay for Soviet-era car parts and accessories — and of course you do, you’re reading Jalopnik — you’ve no doubt come across little lucite shift knobs like the one I recently bought, pictured above. (If you’ll recall, I’m building/rebuilding a Lada. I’ll update you on that before too long, but at this point it’s as much Subaru/Honda as it is Lada.) I was excited to find this one, as the red roses match the Lemons-grade paint job on the exterior of the car, and the green is close enough to Lada’s original color which will remain in the interior and on the new cage.

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Etsy and eBay have piles and piles of these old shift knobs, containing little golden carriages, roses and all kinds of other knick-knacks. Some of the listings say they were made by prisoners, but I haven’t been able to confirm that — or really, find any other information on them at all. I’ve seen no-context photos of them installed on all sorts of old Soviet iron, to the point that I gather they were something of a trend in the pre-or-maybe-early-HyperNormalization era.

I had previously associated this style of shift knob with VIP style and/or the current American interpretation of VIP style, but now that I know it was a thing in the USSR, I am dying to know more. So, if you’re a Russophile, or maybe grew up in Russia or the Eastern Bloc, jump into the comments and school your pal. Did I buy an uncool Soviet shift knob that will immediately identify me as a poseur to those in the know? Tell me!