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(CNN) --
After Renault this week announced its exit from the Russian auto market amid the country's war with Ukraine, Moscow's mayor announced his factory will be used to restart the defunct Soviet-era Moskvich car brand. .
Little known outside the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries, Moskvich was founded around 1930 and operated until 1991. Like many car brands in communist bloc countries, Moskvich faced quality problems.
The 1960s Muskovich 408, which had a 50-horsepower engine, was even cited by Soviet officials for numerous defects, according to Lewis Siegelbaum's book "Cars for Comrades."
Moskvich Automobiles (David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
The author simply describes it as a "terrible car".
Despite these persistent problems, the Soviet government signed an agreement with French automaker Renault to modernize the factory and increase production to 200,000 cars by 1975, according to the book.
Production ended when the Soviet Union dissolved and Western automakers such as Renault moved in.
A part of a former Moskvich factory reopened in 2005 as a joint venture between Renault and the city of Moscow.
Renault also owned a majority stake in Avtovaz, the parent company of the popular Russian car brand Lada.
In its statement this week, Renault said the majority stake was sold to the Russian government, while its majority stake in the Moscow factory, where Renault vehicles were made, was sold to the city of Moscow.
Renault left open the possibility of a return to the Russian market at a later date.
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“The foreign owner has decided to close the Renault factory in Moscow.
It is his right, however, we cannot allow the several thousand strong workers to remain unemployed,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in a blog post, which was translated by CNN Business.
"Therefore, I made the decision to register the plant as a city asset and resume production of passenger cars under the historic Moskvich brand."
"In 2022, we are turning a new page in the history of Moskvich," Sobyanin added.
The company will try to keep all current plant employees working, the mayor wrote.
The factory will also try to source most of the car parts from Russian companies.
The factory will start by producing conventional gasoline-powered cars but, at some point, will switch to making electric cars, according to Sobyanin's blog post.
However, Sobyanin did not specify which vehicle models would be made under the Moskvich name at the former Renault factory in the near future.
McDonald's is leaving Russia entirely due to the war in Ukraine
Moskvich has its roots in what are considered some of the first cars designed by the Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930. After the Second World War, the company began producing cars under the name Moskvich, which means "Muscovite "or native Moscow.
Today, around 200,000 Moskvich cars are still registered in Russia, according to the Autostat analysis agency.
Generally speaking, cars produced in the centrally controlled economies of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries were not known for their quality.
Some cars made in communist bloc countries, like the East German Trabant, found a cult following in the West.
The body of the Trabant was made from a material called Duroplast that looked like plastic but was made from a mix of wood pulp, cotton fiber and resin.
Still, changes are possible.
Škoda, which was made in the then communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, was taken over by the Volkswagen Group after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Now based in the Czech Republic, it has become one of the most popular and profitable brands in the VW Group.
CNN Business and Reuters' Mark Thompson contributed to this story.
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