Material from the Encyclopedia of the magazine "Behind the wheel"

GAZ-M20
Specifications:
body	fastback (4-door sedan) and 4-door convertible
Number of doors	4
number of seats	5
length	4665 mm
width	1695 mm
height	1590/1640 mm
wheelbase	2700 mm
front track	1364 mm
back track	1362 mm
ground clearance	200 mm
trunk volume	l
engine location	front longitudinally
engine's type	petrol
engine volume	2112 cm 3
Power	52/3600 HP at rpm
Torque	125 N * m at rpm
Valves per cylinder	2
KP	3-speed with synchronizer for 2nd and 3rd gear
Front suspension	independent, lever-spring
Rear suspension	spring
Shock absorbers	hydraulic double-acting.
Front brakes	drum
Rear brakes	drum
Fuel consumption	13.5 l / 100 km
maximum speed	105 km / h
years of production	1946-1958
type of drive	rear
Curb weight	1350 kg
acceleration 0-100 km / h	45 sec

GAZ M-20 Pobeda is a serial Soviet-made passenger car produced at the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) from 1946 to 1958. One of the world's first mass production vehicles with a monocoque 4-door pontoon body, which did not have separate fenders, steps and headlights. Produced in various modifications, including with an open body of the "convertible" type.

History of creation

The government assignment for the design and preparation for the production of a new model of a passenger car that would correspond to modern trends in the global automotive industry and have improved performance characteristics than the GAZ-M1 car produced at that time was received by the management of the Gorky Automobile Plant in December 1941. However, the plant was fully occupied with the production of military equipment, and the implementation of the project was temporarily postponed.
At the same time, at the very end of 1941, the Gorky plant received a captured German car Opel Kapitan of 1938. This car was chosen as a prototype, since this car best corresponded to the requirements of the technical task and the ideas of Soviet designers about what a modern passenger car should be like.

Photo Lipgart and Kirillov, 1944

The practical development of the GAZ-25 Rodina car began in early February 1943 with a sketch project by the artist V. Brodsky. On February 3, 1943, a meeting was held at the People's Commissariat for Sredmash in Moscow, at which A.A. Lipgart, the chief designer of GAZ, made a presentation in which he outlined in detail the new car models that are being prepared for release, including the GAZ-25 Rodina, despite the fact that this project existed only in the form of general outline sketches. Upon returning to Gorky, a group of designers was organized at the plant, whose task was to create a new passenger car of the middle class. It included B. Kirsanov (head of the design group), A. Kirillov (leading body designer) and other engineers. The work was supervised by Deputy Chief Designer A. Krieger (he was in charge of the chassis and engine) and Y. Sorochkin (he supervised the progress of work on the design of the body). At the initiative of Sorochkin, the artist V. Samoilov was involved in the work, who created the unique look of the car. Samoilov's version was accepted for development. Unlike the final version of Pobeda, the rear doors of Samoilov's car were hung on the C-pillar and opened, like in the Opel Kapitan, backwards, against the course of the car.

Photo of Kirillov shows a model by a fashion designer, 1944

The artist himself did not see his project in metal. Soon after finishing work on the sketches, Veniamin Samoilov died tragically. The first prototype of the car was ready on November 6, 1944, Andrey Aleksandrovich Lipgart personally took him outside the factory gates to the test site. Soon, two more vehicles were delivered for testing. Unlike the production model "Pobeda", these three cars were equipped with 6-cylinder engines from the GAZ 11-73 car (a modernized version of the GAZ-M1, produced during the war years). This motor was manufactured under license from the American company Dodge. The line of future "Victories" provided for the production of cars with both a 6-cylinder modernized Dodge D5 engine and a 4-cylinder engine. Moreover, the first modification was the main one, and the second was intended for manning taxi companies. But later, they decided to abandon the idea of ​​equipping a new car with a 6-cylinder engine in favor of a 4-cylinder one for reasons of fuel economy (which was not enough in the post-war years in the country) and to simplify the design of the car. The 4-cylinder engine was unified in detail with a more powerful version and was the same "six" cut by a third, which was later used in ZIM cars and trucks of the Gorky Automobile Plant (in particular, GAZ-51).

John Williams (in sleeveless jacket) and head of the body design bureau Yuri Sorochkin discussing plaster models. 1949 g.

On June 19, 1945, both modifications, with 6 and 4-cylinder engines, were presented to Joseph Stalin. The head of state was skeptical about the car with a 6-cylinder engine, believing that it is out of the government's classification of passenger cars and is closer to a higher class of cars. Soon the name of the car was also changed - Stalin, hearing the name of the project, said: "How much will you sell your homeland?" when the second name was announced - "Victory" - Stalin chuckled and said: "A small victory, but it will do."

Life-size wooden mock-up

On August 26, 1945, a decree of the State Defense Committee "On the restoration and development of the automotive industry" was issued, according to which the production of the GAZ-M20 was scheduled for June 28, 1946. Serial production of the new car began ahead of schedule - on June 21, 1946 (but this fact is not convincingly confirmed). Cars were manufactured using a bypass technology, mostly by hand. Until the end of 1946, only 23 cars were produced. Mass production of the GAZ-M20 was launched on April 28, 1947. At the same time, the original version of the car has undergone modernization. The design of the front of the car was changed, the speedometer was replaced (from a tape to a dial one), a place was provided for installing a radio receiver.

Name

GAZ-M20 became the first Soviet passenger car, which, in addition to the factory index, had a name - "Victory". The letter "M" in the car index denotes the word "Molotovets" - from 1935 to 1957 the plant bore the name of the People's Commissar V. Molotov. The number “20” means that the car belongs to a new model range with a reduced engine displacement (up to “two liters”). Models of the senior line were designated as "1x" - GAZ-12 "ZIM", GAZ-13 "Chaika". In subsequent years, this indexation was preserved - GAZ-21 "Volga", GAZ-24 "Volga".

Design

For the mid-40s of the last century, the GAZ-M20 "Pobeda" was completely revolutionary. Borrowing from the 1938 Opel Kapitan the structure of the monocoque body (internal panels and load-bearing elements), the designers of the Gorky Automobile Plant completely rethought the appearance of the car and adopted a number of innovations that became widespread in the West only a few years later.

The body of "Pobeda" belongs to a rare type of "fastback" today. It is an aerodynamic "two-volume" with a sloping roof, a narrowed rear, a strongly tilted rear window, with a dedicated trunk of small capacity. The Opel Kapitan prototype had four doors, the front doors opened in the direction of the car, the rear doors opened against. On "Pobeda" all four doors open in the direction of the car - the traditional way today. The modern (at that time) appearance of "Victory" received thanks to the appearance of the waist line, the combination of the front and rear fenders with the body, the absence of decorative steps, an alligator-type hood, headlights mounted in the front part of the body and other characteristic details that were unusual in the mid-forties ...
The working volume of the 4-cylinder engine was 2.112 liters, the power was 50 horsepower. The maximum torque was reached at 3600 rpm. The motor has earned a reputation for being reliable, durable and high-torque. But the Pobeda engine clearly lacked power. Up to a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, the car accelerated quite briskly, but then there was a failure in acceleration. "Pobeda" reached speeds of 100 kilometers per hour in 45 seconds. The maximum speed was 105 kilometers per hour.
The M-20 engine was used on many poppies of passenger cars and not only at the Gorky plant. They were equipped with the Soviet "jeep" GAZ-69 "Truzhenik", the production of which was transferred to the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, they were equipped with "Warsaw" - the Polish version of "Victory", Polish minibuses "Nysa" and other cars. The low-valve engine was characterized by a low compression ratio and the ability to run on low-octane fuel (A-66 gasoline). For its time, "Pobeda" was an economical car, although by modern standards the fuel consumption for such a working volume is too high. According to technical data, the car consumed 11 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, operating consumption - 13.5 liters, real - from 13 to 15 liters per 100 kilometers.

Of the other components of the car, the attention is drawn to effective lever shock absorbers - the car was distinguished by a smooth ride. Hydraulic drum brakes with common all-wheel drive - this solution was used for the first time on a Soviet-made car. The brake mechanism was very simple - the pads were spread by one hydraulic cylinder in each of the four brake drums.
Further - in the initial version of "Victory", which was mass-produced from 1946 to 1948, there was a three-stage non-synchronized gearbox from a GAZ-M1 car with an "easy on" clutch (instead of a synchronizer). In 1950, Pobeda received a 3-speed gearbox with synchronized 2nd and 3rd gears from the GAZ-12 ZIM car (this gearbox was later migrated to the GAZ-21 Volga). The gear lever has been moved from the floor to the steering column. As a result, according to technical data, a five-seater car accommodated six people - another passenger could sit in the front seat next to the driver.
The car was distinguished by a practical finish. For the first time in the automotive history of the USSR, a heater was built into "Pobeda", which was blown over the front glass. Then the warm air naturally spread through the cabin, there were no special outlets for the flow of warm air in the cabin, so in winter the Pobeda was a rather cold car. It is worth noting the ventilation system - to improve air circulation inside the passenger compartment, the rear door windows of the car had pivoting vents, the same ones that were installed in the front door windows (only "backwards", not in the front of the window, but in the rear).

Photo - sailor and later famous writer Yuz Aleshkovsky (right). 1949 year

The car enjoyed great love among motorists, although there was no rush in demand during the years of production. It should be remembered that with the price of "Victory" at 16 thousand rubles, the average wage in the USSR was 600 rubles. The car was simply not available to anyone. For comparison - "ZIM" was sold for 40 thousand rubles and was on sale. Cars "Moskvich" 400 and 401 cost 8 and 9 thousand rubles (but they were not in great demand either).

Modifications to "Victory"

1946-1948 - GAZ-M20 of the "first" series.
1948-1954 - GAZ-M20 "second" series. The springs, the thermostat were modernized, since 1950 the clock, the car received a heater and a ventilation system (blowing the windshield). Since 1950, a new gearbox and a water pump have been installed on Pobeda (both mechanisms are from the ZIM car). The total production volume since the beginning of production is about 160 thousand copies.
1955-1958 - GAZ-20V. A modernized 52 horsepower engine was installed on the car. The car received a new radiator grille and radio. The volume of issue is 24285 copies. The total production volume of 184,285 copies with the first modifications and the GAZ-M20V.
1949-1958 - GAZ-M20A. Modification of "Victory" to work as a taxi. Compared to the base version, this one had a different interior and exterior design. The total volume of production is 37492 copies.
1949-1953 - GAZ-M20 "Pobeda-Cabriolet". A car with an opening fabric top and non-removable sidewalls that act as roll bars. The total volume of the issue is 14222 copies.
1955-1958 - GAZ-M72. The world's first jeep with a comfortable monocoque body. The car was a hybrid of "Victory", from which the body was borrowed, and an all-terrain vehicle GAZ-69 "Truzhenik". The car never bore the name "Pobeda" and was produced in the amount of 4677 pieces.
The total number of cars "Pobeda" produced over the years of production, including small-scale models (pickup, van, ceremonial military convertible), amounted to 241,497 copies.

Fan site "Victory"

From the collection "Driving" 1976 №8

From the collection "Driving" 1978 №5

From the collection "Driving" 1982 №5

From the collection "Driving" 1982 №7

From the collection "Driving" 1987 №1

Victory Day №9-2003

Photo Bonus

Due to stamping defects, 15–20 kg of lead-tin solder had to be applied to each machine. That is why a legend was born among the people that the entire body of the "Victory" was tinned so as not to rust.

In the mid-40s, the Gorky Automobile Plant began to develop a rear-wheel drive car with a fastback sedan body, which later received the name GAZ-M20 Pobeda. "Pobeda" became the first car in the USSR, which was equipped with electric turn signals and windshield wipers

Initially, the GAZ-M20 was planned to be called "Motherland", but an incident occurred with this name, when the car was shown to Stalin, he asked with a grin "Well, how much is our Motherland now?" The name was immediately changed, and the GAZ-M20 became known as "Victory".

The prototype of the car was the German Opel Kapitan model of 1939 with a pontoon-type body. The design of the German "Captain" was completely rethought by the talented artist Veniamin Samoilov, who later created the final drawing of the future "Victory". As a result, the car received a streamlined design without protruding fenders, with recessed headlights.

In terms of design, the GAZ-M20 Pobeda was at one time ahead of many Western counterparts until the early 50s. The car had an independent front suspension and, as standard, was equipped with a stove with a windshield blower function.

Since the beginning of the 50s, a large number of cars were exported, the production of passenger cars increased in the country, which led to a shortage of high-quality sheet metal. Due to the lack of steel sheet, it was decided to make cars with a folding fabric roof, so a convertible was born on the basis of "Pobeda".

The GAZ-M20 Pobeda car was on the assembly line for 12 years, its production was discontinued in 1958, but in Poland this sedan-type car continued to be produced until 1973, but under its own name “Warsaw”.

Design and construction

GAZ-M20 received a 4-cylinder engine with a capacity of 50 horsepower, although it was originally planned to install a 6-cylinder GAZ-11 engine, thanks to this engine, the car could accelerate to 105 km / h

Pobeda has been modernized several times, for the first time a year after the start of mass production in 1947. This year, the rims of the headlights have become chrome-plated, the radiator grille has changed (it has become, as it were, "three-story", its lower part goes behind the side lights) and the side lights. However, the design of the "Victory" was still "raw" and its production was suspended for one year. The main disadvantages of the first cars were an uncomfortable fit, an imperfect exhaust system and a flimsy body.

In 1949 the model returned to the assembly line, from that moment the production of the so-called "second series" began. "Victory", which has been produced since 1949, did not repeat the shortcomings of its predecessor, the car received an improved exhaust system, a carburetor, and the body was also strengthened. In appearance, the "second series" could be distinguished by the radiator grill, which was now two, and not "three-story". Car wheels with stamped discs without holes had a wide width for those years, fastened with five nuts on studs. In 1950, the car received a gearbox from ZIM (they had previously installed an outdated one from Emka) and a new muffler. And 2 years later, in 1952, the engine was modernized, its power increased from 50 to 52 horsepower.

The "third series" of GAZ-M20 Pobeda cars appeared in 1955 after another modernization of the car. The new car received new, more attractive upholstery and a new steering wheel with a ring signal button. A radio was included as standard. The radiator lining has also changed once again, on which a new emblem has appeared. The engine was once again modernized, now its power was 55 horsepower.

Modifications

GAZ M-20 "Pobeda"

A car with a fastback sedan body, equipped with a 4-cylinder engine with a capacity of 50 and 52 horsepower. The first series of the car was produced from 1946 to 1948, from November 1, 1948, "Pobeda" received a heater and blowing the windshield, from October 1948 new parabolic springs. In 1949, the production of the second series began, which from October of the same year received a new thermostat, from 1950 new more reliable watches, from November 1, 1949 the model was assembled on a new conveyor, and from October 1950 it received a new gearbox from ZIM with a lever on steering wheel and about the same time - a new water pump. A total of 184,285 cars were produced, including the GAZ-M-20V.

GAZ M-20V "Pobeda"

The modernized "Pobeda", the third series of the car, was equipped with an engine with a capacity of 52, and later 55 horsepower. The car received a new design for the radiator grille, radio, new upholstery, steering wheel.

GAZ M-20A "Pobeda"

Car modification for taxi service. The body is a fastback sedan, a 4-cylinder engine with a capacity of 52 horsepower. A total of 37,492 copies were produced.

GAZ M-20 "Pobeda - convertible"

According to some reports, it is believed that this modification had its own index "M-20B". The car with an open body sedan-convertible had rigid safety arcs, was equipped with a 4-cylinder GAZ-M-20 engine with a capacity of 52 horsepower. Only the upper part of the roof was folded, and the sidewalls remained rigid. This convertible tarpaulin top had a negative impact on aerodynamics, as the top speed was reduced by 5 km / h compared to the fastback, and fuel consumption increased from 11 to 11.5 liters per 100 kilometers. A total of 14,222 copies were produced.

GAZ M-20D

Modification for the needs of the MGB with an engine boosted to 57-62 horsepower by increasing the compression ratio.

GAZ M-20G (M-26)

The GAZ-M-20G car, according to other sources, the M-26 was produced from 1956 to 1958 specifically for the needs of the MGB (KGB). In fact, it was a high-speed version of the same "Victory", which was equipped with a 6-cylinder engine from "ZIM" with a capacity of 90 horsepower.

GAZ M-72

Four-wheel drive passenger car with a frameless monocoque body based on the M-20 "Pobeda" with a chassis from an army jeep GAZ-69. This car can be considered one of the world's first comfortable SUVs. Externally, the SUV differed from the rear-wheel drive model by increased ground clearance, mud flaps on the rear wheel arches and 6.50-16 tires with a herringbone tread. Produced from 1955 to 1958, during this time 4677 off-road vehicles rolled off the assembly line.

GAZ M-73

A prototype of a compact two-seater four-wheel drive vehicle, which was planned as a traveling vehicle for collective farm leaders. It was equipped with an engine from a Moskvich-402 car with a capacity of 35 horsepower. It did not go into mass production.

In addition to these modifications, there was a modification with bodies such as a van, a pickup, a stretch, as well as a 4-door front convertible, there were also sports modifications ("GAZ-Torpedo" and "Pobeda-Sport" with a forced engine, fairings and a two-door body)

The car with a beautiful and symbolic name "Victory" has become one of the symbols of the Soviet Union, without losing its charm and charm over the decades. This passenger car was mass-produced at the Gorky Automobile Plant from 1946 to 1958. The first "Pobeda" (factory index of the M-20 model) rolled off the GAZ assembly line on June 28, 1946, on this day 70 years ago the serial production of this model started.

The GAZ-M-20 became the first Soviet passenger car with a monocoque body and one of the world's first large-volume vehicles produced with a monocoque 4-door pontoon body that did not have separate fenders, headlights and footrests. In our country, "Victory" has become truly cult, and today thousands of fans of the model are chasing the now preserved retro cars. On the territory of the USSR, "Pobeda" became the first mass passenger car. Before her, cars for personal use were considered in the country only as a government award.

A well-known anecdote is also connected with the car. When Joseph Stalin was shown the car and offered its first name "Motherland", he frowned and asked with a smile: "Well, how much will we have a Motherland?" On the same day, the name was changed to "Pobeda", under which the car went down in history forever. However, all of the above is nothing more than a beautiful legend. The car was originally planned to be called "Victory" in honor of the upcoming victory in the war with Nazi Germany, and the name "Motherland" was just an internal plant.

Work on the creation of the GAZ-M-20 "Pobeda" car began during the war years. The government assignment for the design and preparation for serial production of a new passenger car, which would meet all modern trends in the global automotive industry and have better performance characteristics compared to the GAZ-M1, was received by the GAZ management back in December 1941. Surprisingly, this was not an order for a truck, not for a tractor for cannons, or even for an ambulance, but for an ordinary passenger car, which was very symbolic. But at that time, the plant was completely focused on the production of military equipment and the project was simply postponed. At the same time, at the very end of 1941, a captured German Opel Kapitan of 1938 was delivered to Gorky. It was decided to choose this car as a prototype, since it best corresponded to the requirements of the received terms of reference and the ideas of Soviet designers about exactly what a modern passenger car should be.

In practice, work on the creation of a new passenger car began at the Molotov automobile plant in Gorky only in 1943 after the victory that the Red Army won at Stalingrad. According to the sketches of the artist Veniamin Samoilov, plaster models of the future car were made on a scale of 1 to 5, and according to the most successful model, a life-size model of mahogany was made. Work on the passenger car was not interrupted even after the large-scale bombing of GAZ by German aircraft in June 1943.

It was the artist Samoilov who created the unique and recognizable appearance of the car to this day. Unlike the final version of "Victory", the rear doors of Samoilov's car were hung on the rear pillar of the body and opened in the same way as in the German Opel Kapitan backwards, against the course of the car. Unfortunately, the artist himself never saw his brainchild in metal: he died tragically after finishing work on the model's sketches.

The first prototype "Pobeda" was assembled on November 6, 1944; Andrey Aleksandrovich Lipgart, the chief designer of the Gorky Automobile Plant, personally brought the sample outside the gates of the plant to the test site. Soon two more cars came for testing. Unlike the serial GAZ-M-20 cars, they differed in the presence of a 6-cylinder engine from the GAZ 11-73 car (an upgraded version of the GAZ-M1, which was produced during the war years). This engine was produced under license from the American company Dodge. The line of future cars "Pobeda" should have found a place for both cars with a 6-cylinder engine (modernized Dodge D5) and with a 4-cylinder engine.

At the same time, the first modification with a 6-cylinder engine was supposed to become the main one, and the second was originally developed for taxi fleets. However, later it was decided to abandon the version with a 6-cylinder engine in favor of a 4-cylinder version. This was done in connection with considerations of fuel economy, in the post-war years in the country there was simply not enough of it, as well as the simplification of the car design. The 4-cylinder GAZ engine was unified in detail with another more powerful version, representing a "six" truncated by a third, which was later widely used on ZIM machines and GAZ trucks, in particular the famous GAZ-51.

For the mid-1940s, Pobeda was a fully revolutionary machine. Borrowing from the German Opel Kapitan of 1938 the structure of the load-bearing body (load-bearing elements and internal panels), the designers of the Gorky Automobile Plant were able to completely rethink the appearance of the car and were able to adopt a number of such innovations, which would become widespread in the West only a few years later. The German Opel Kapitan had 4 doors, with the front doors opening in the direction of the car, and the rear ones in the opposite direction. On the GAZ-M-20, all 4 doors were opened in the direction of the car - in the traditional way today. The modern (at that time) appearance of the Soviet car acquired thanks to the presence of a belt line, the combination of the front and rear fenders with the body, as well as the absence of decorative steps, a memorable alligator-type hood, headlights mounted in the front part of the body and other characteristic details, which in the middle of 1940 -s were not yet familiar.

For the first time in the practice of the Soviet automotive industry on the GAZ-M-20 Pobeda, independent suspension of the front wheels, a hydraulic brake drive, electric brake lights and direction indicators, a hinge of all doors on the front hinges, an alligator-type hood, two electric windshield wipers were serially used and a thermostat in the cooling system. For the first time on a domestic passenger car of this class, an interior heater with blowing a windshield was installed as standard equipment.

The working volume of the 4-cylinder engine chosen for "Victory" was 2.112 liters, it developed a maximum power of 50 hp. This motor provided maximum torque at 3600 rpm. The engine has earned a reputation for being reliable, high-torque and durable. However, the Pobeda engine clearly lacked power, which was also noted by foreign journalists in their reviews of the car (the car was also exported). Up to a speed of 50 km / h, the car accelerated quite briskly, but then a failure was indicated in acceleration. The speed of 100 km / h "Pobeda" reached only 45 seconds, and the maximum speed of the car was limited to 105 km / h. It is curious that for its time the GAZ-M-20 was a fairly economical car, but by modern standards, the fuel consumption for an engine of such a working volume was high. According to technical data, the car consumed 11 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, the operating consumption was 13.5 liters, and the real fuel consumption was from 13 to 15 liters per 100 kilometers. The compression ratio of the engine of the GAZ M-20 "Pobeda" car allowed it to work normally on the lowest-grade, "66" gasoline.

The effective lever shock absorbers could also be highlighted - the car was distinguished by good smoothness, as well as hydraulic drum brakes with common all-wheel drive. The latter were used for the first time in the Soviet automobile industry. The mechanism of the brakes realized was very simple - the pads were spread by one hydraulic cylinder in each of the 4 brake drums.

At the time of the start of serial production, "Pobeda" favorably distinguished itself by its advanced design and modern construction, but by the beginning of the 1950s, a number of design flaws of the car had become apparent - first of all, the low functionality of the selected fastback body type (a very low ceiling height above the rear seat, almost complete absence of rearward visibility, a rather modest trunk volume, a nasty aerodynamic effect, which was associated with the appearance of lift when driving at high speed, as well as a strong susceptibility to side wind drift. with a fastback body did not take root anywhere in the world.By the mid-1950s, the aggregate part of the car (primarily the low-valve engine) ceased to correspond to the world level. From 1952-1954, on most American and many new European car models began to install overhead valve engines, bent st ekla, hypoid rear axles, etc.

Although the serial production of "Pobedy" started in Gorky on June 28, 1946, by the end of 1946, only 23 cars were assembled at GAZ. Truly mass production of cars was only launched on April 28, 1947. It is noteworthy that the GAZ-M-20 became the first passenger car in the USSR, which, in addition to the factory index, had its own name - "Pobeda". The letter "M" in the factory index of the car meant the word "Molotovets" - from 1935 to 1957, the Gorky Automobile Plant bore the name of the People's Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov. The number “20” meant that the car belonged to a new model range, which was distinguished by a reduced engine displacement (up to “two liters”). Models of the senior line of GAZ were designated as "1x" - GAZ-12 "ZIM" and GAZ-13 "Chaika". In subsequent years, this indexation at the plant was retained - GAZ-21 "Volga" and Gaz-24 "Volga"

The first cars "Pobeda" were distributed exclusively according to instructions "from above" and signed by Molotov himself. At the initial stage, there were not enough cars even for the heroes of the country and laureates of Stalin's prizes. And yet Pobeda became a car that was available to consumers. In the first Soviet motor show, located in Moscow, wealthy citizens had a choice between Moskvich-401 (9 thousand rubles), Pobeda (16 thousand rubles) and the mind-blowingly expensive ZIM for the Soviet Union (40 thousand rubles). It should be noted that at that time the salary of an experienced qualified engineer was approximately 600 rubles. Even then, "Pobeda" enjoyed great love among Soviet motorists, but for many it was a pipe dream. Due to the high price, there was no rush demand for GAZ M-20 in the country. In fairness, it should be noted that the "Moskvichs" 400 and 401, which were sold for 8 and 9 thousand rubles, respectively, were not in great demand from Soviet citizens. Despite this, GAZ was able to produce and sell 241,497 Pobeda vehicles.

The car went well for export. Mainly "Pobeda" were exported to Finland, where taxi drivers loved the car, to the Scandinavian countries, as well as to Belgium, where a lot of Soviet cars were always sold. It should be noted that the taxi in Finland as a mass phenomenon arose largely thanks to the Soviet "Victory". Until that moment, all local taxi companies were equipped with various pre-war models. In the 1950s, the first "Victories" appeared in Great Britain, where they were sold by Belgian dealers of the Gorky Automobile Plant, as well as in the USA, where cars were imported from Europe by private individuals, mainly out of curiosity. At the same time, initially this Soviet car received quite favorable and positive reviews in the West.

Pobeda was also produced under license in other countries. So, since 1951, the car was produced in Poland under the Warszawa brand, the cars were produced at the FSO plant (Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych). In Poland, this car was produced much longer than in the USSR. Production of "Warsaw" continued until 1973, however, the car has undergone major upgrades. In particular, later releases of the car received an overhead valve engine and new bodies: "sedan", "pickup" and "station wagon". At the same time, starting in 1956, the car was assembled exclusively from Polish-made components. In total, 254,372 cars of this type were assembled in Poland - more than in the Soviet Union, the original "Victories" were collected.

Work on the creation of a fundamentally new passenger car began at the Gorky Automobile Plant during the war years. Supervised the design of the car, which was originally planned to be called GAZ-25 "Rodina", chief designer Andrey Alexandrovich Lipgart. It was assumed that the car would have two options: with a four-cylinder and six-cylinder engine, but in the end, it was decided to leave only the version with four cylinders, as simpler and more economical. In June 1945, the finished prototype was demonstrated to Joseph Stalin, at this demonstration the launch of the model into production was approved, and the name GAZ-M-20 Pobeda was assigned to it.

The official launch of the conveyor took place, as planned, in June 1946, but it was, in fact, piece production using a bypass technology. The development of the mass production of "Pobeda" went very slowly, largely due to the fact that the car was significantly different from everything that was produced by the Soviet auto industry so far. In 1946, 23 were made, in 1947 - 601, and in 1948 - 4549 cars. For some time in 1948, production was even suspended to refine the design of the machine.

GAZ-M-20 "Pobeda" had a load-bearing body (the first among Soviet cars) of the "fastback" type with a sloping rear end. It was one of the first bodies of the so-called "pontoon" type in the world - without protruding fenders and steps. Under the hood of the car was a four-cylinder engine with a volume of 2.1 liters and a capacity of 50 liters. with. It was combined with a three-speed unsynchronized gearbox, which received second and third gear synchronizers in 1950.

The cost of the car was about 16,000 rubles, "Moskvich-400", for example, cost half the price.

In 1948, the production of the modernized "Pobeda" of the second series was launched. She had an improved suspension, and a heater appeared in the cabin.

In 1949, a cabriolet version with an opening fabric roof top appeared; it was 500 rubles cheaper than a closed car. At the same time, specifically for taxi companies, they began to make a modification of the GAZ-20A.

The car of the third series (GAZ-20V "Pobeda") entered the assembly line in 1955. This car could be recognized by a different design of the radiator grille. The modernized engine became a little more powerful (52 hp), and a radio was installed on the car.

The production of the GAZ-M-20 ended in 1958. A total of 241,497 cars were made, including the all-wheel drive GAZ-M72 (4677 cars) and a convertible (14222 cars). "Pobeda" was exported to Finland (where it was very popular with taxi drivers), other Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Great Britain. In 1951, a licensed version of the car under the Warszawa brand was produced in Poland.

"Victory" M-20

Another article in the series about the predecessor models of the Volga GAZ-24 is devoted to the M-20 Pobeda - or GAZ-20, if you call it by the in-plant model index - a car remarkable not only on a domestic scale, but, perhaps, in what -to the least, and the global automotive industry.

Despite the huge amount of information available today (Suffice it to mention the very benign site of Artyom Alekseenko), "Victory" is still surrounded by a whole layer of mythology, both positive and negative. Without setting itself as the main goal of this article to debunk the myths about this car or, on the contrary, to find confirmation for it, it would be advisable to touch on the question of the plausibility of at least the most widely replicated of them - and also to cite a number of curious ones concerning "Victory", but, on the contrary, facts that are not widely known.

Speaking about the history of the development of "Victory", in general, it should be noted that, despite the large number of publications devoted to it, it still cannot be considered definitively written: every year such details and new facts "emerge" that force to discard much of the usual view at her. Worse, it has become overgrown with many misconceptions, misinterpretations and unreliable, but ingrained opinions of individual researchers. As practice has shown, the original version of this article, written in 2012, also turned out to be far from free from them, and there is no guarantee that in the current one in the near future it will not be necessary to make the most radical changes.

Traditionally, even, apparently, from the time of Shugurov, the creation of "Pobeda" is usually counted from the meeting of the People's Commissariat of Medium Machine Building on February 3, 1943 - which took place in the midst of hostilities, the Battle of Stalingrad ended on February 2 - with which a task was sent to the Gorky Automobile Plant for design, among others, and a new passenger car.

Meanwhile, by this time, the plant already had a ready-made promising type for post-war cars, including a middle-class passenger car, so work in this direction was clearly carried out before the meeting on February 3. The government assignment essentially repeated the proposals of the plant itself, made on the basis of pre-war developments.

In fact, the plant began to design a promising middle-class model even before the war, and even then the main elements of the future car were selected - a streamlined monocoque body, an independent front suspension, and so on. The mastering of the new model in production was planned around 1943.

We began, as usual, with an acquaintance with the level of foreign automotive industry achieved in recent years, for which in 1938, the purchase of foreign analogues was carried out - the best models of the middle class at that time, aimed at comparative tests in order to determine the design solutions most suitable for domestic conditions ... At the same time, the task of choosing a specific prototype for licensed or unlicensed copying was not posed - the task of the factory workers was, on the basis of the data obtained as a result of comparative tests, to formulate requirements for their own design, which not only should not be inferior to foreign ones in terms of main indicators, but also, if possible, outstrip them. according to the technical level, counting on a long production period without obsolescence.

In terms of layout and design, this idea was fully implemented - according to these indicators, the project of a new GAZ car did not look outdated even ten years after the start of work on it. Alas, on other points, the situation did not look so rosy: the difficult circumstances of the emergence of a new "passenger car" forced to "drag" into its design a lot of outdated, if not even archaic for that time, constructive solutions ...

In the same 1938, Valentin Brodsky, who was at that time at the plant as an artist-consultant, completed the first search sketches of the future car:

In general, this sketch looks like a kind of "alloy" of the then recent achievements of the Germans in the field of aerodynamics and the Americans in the field of "styling". Today it makes a strange impression - as if the front and rear of a car of the late thirties were attached to the body with a sidewall of a clearly post-war look. The additional sections on the sides of the windshield, also made according to the pre-war fashion, also look unusual. Nevertheless, it already contains all the basic design elements of the future "Victory". In those years, many of these machines were painted, some were even built in single copies, but they did not go into the series.

Sometimes this sketch dates from 1943. This is completely incorrect, since by that time Brodsky had been fighting on the fronts of the Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars for the fourth year already ...

And the design of the front end with a semicircular radiator mask, reminiscent of the "Emka" GAZ-11-73, clearly gives out the style of the late thirties. In the early forties, "this was no longer worn" - flat radiator masks, completely "recessed" into the front and continuing the surface of the front fenders, came into fashion.

The similarity of many elements of the body shape with post-war cars is nothing more than an accidental (or prophetic - as you like ...) coincidence; in general, the car is framed quite within the framework of pre-war trends.

However, apparently, along with this radical one, more conservative design options were considered:

Work on mock-ups of promising cars at KEO GAZ. The year is 1939.

Another perspective of the layout from the top photo. It could just as well have been built in a design studio of an American firm.

Unfortunately, the normal course of work on a passenger car was interrupted first by the war with Finland (1939-1940), and then by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Already from the end of the 1930s, promising work on the topic of passenger cars in the USSR began to curtail, the entire industry was transferred to a war footing. True, during a short peaceful respite at the end of 1940 - beginning of 1941 in Moscow, it was possible to start production of the "people's" small car KIM, but in general the situation was not very conducive to updating the model range of automotive enterprises. We were destined to meet the new big war with outdated, but well-developed in production "lorry" and "emka", since history did not release time and resources for fine-tuning and mastering new models.

And if the GAZ-51 truck, which was developed almost in parallel, still managed to bring it to the stage of running samples, which were tested during the war years (and its all-wheel drive version of the GAZ-63 was even formally adopted by the Red Army in 1939; after the war, both cars were completely redesigned), then the passenger car for June 1941 was still "on paper".

The same thing happened with American cars with a similar body shape, on which work was carried out in 1941-1942 and which were supposed to go into production by about 1943-1944 model year: shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, mass production of passenger cars in the United States was discontinued until further notice, only separate series of pre-war models were assembled for the needs of the army and government departments. And behind the closed doors of design studios at the same time, models of cars were molded for an as yet such a distant peaceful future ...

Unlike Pobeda, most of these cars were unlucky enough to go into production. The fact is that when at the end of 1945 - 1946 American car manufacturers were able to resume the production of "passenger cars", in the bulk they simply took out of the warehouses practically unworn molds for the bodies of the last pre-war models of 1942 that had been lying there throughout the war and resumed their production with minimal restyling.

And by the time the first really developed "from scratch" post-war cars went into production in 1947-1949, their design was no longer based on pre-war developments. Moreover, the firms that nevertheless put their promising pre-war developments on the conveyor turned out to be a loser, since the design of American cars in the post-war period began to develop in a completely different direction that was considered promising before Pearl Harbor.

It was possible to fully resume work on a promising passenger car at GAZ only after the aforementioned meeting and receiving an official assignment for it. The main work on the design of the car was carried out by the chief designer of the plant A.A. Lipgart. A. M. Krieger was responsible for the development of the chassis, and A. N. Kirillov for the body.

Naturally, the three years lost due to the war had to be somehow compensated for: the full development cycle "from scratch", say, of a fundamentally new type of suspension, including long-term life tests of prototypes and development of production technology, takes more than one year, with the right to make a mistake the plant did not have - all the main units should have basically “turned out” from the first attempt, because in the post-war devastation, it simply would not have had the opportunity to correct fundamental errors in the design of the car after the start of its mass production.

The world leader of the automotive industry of those years, General Motors, took more than three years to develop an independent suspension of the KneeAction type (see about it below), and only one and a half million miles of the total mileage of test cars took only field tests of prototypes. As of 1943, GAZ did not have the ability to carry out such large-scale development work.

The continued dependence of the Soviet automobile industry on foreign technologies also affected. By that time, in Western countries with long traditions of the automotive industry, not only production, but also the design of automobiles was put on stream, and the needs of the automotive industry were served by a multitude of subcontractors that accumulated vast experience in the development and production of automotive components, and independent design bureaus that provided services for the development of car design and its technological design.

For example, almost all car manufacturers in those years ordered all-metal bodies to an American company Budd company, which, in fact, was the first to develop the technology for their production (or to its branches: the German Ambi-Budd or British Pressed Steel Company; French firm Bliss, providing bodies Citroën and the French subsidiary of Ford ", was the license holder Budd, and for each body released according to her technology, she paid royalties).

In particular, it was the specialists of the Budd Company or its branches that developed and put into production the supporting bodies of the models Citroën TA and Opel kapitan.

Almost all of Europe bought electrical products from the company Bosch; clutches and shock absorbers on a good half of European cars used brands Komet-Mecano(company branch Fichtel & Sachs) , and braking mechanisms - ATE-Lockheed... Etc.

In order to design and launch a new car in a series, they only needed an idea and money for its implementation - all the necessary “tools” for this were already “at hand”.

Before the war, the USSR used this opportunity quite actively, ordering abroad technological design and production equipment for its automotive projects (ZIS-101, KIM-10 and others). But, for obvious reasons, there is no way to order in 1943-44 the development of the most complex structural elements of a new car, such as a front suspension and a monocoque body, or in 1944-45 - the manufacture of tooling for the production of a body, abroad, as was done for some pre-war there were no Soviet models - all countries that had the opportunity to fulfill such an order were also involved in the world war and practically stopped the development and production of cars, even for their own use.

In the pre-war USSR itself, a truly serious design school in this area was just beginning to emerge, professional automobile designers were literally in short supply, and the experience of creating "from scratch" the technology for the production of a modern passenger car was completely absent, since such a task was set before the industry in fact first.

However, in assessing the current situation, it is important not to go too far. Recently, one often hears arguments about the fact that a breakthrough in the Soviet automotive industry in the post-war years became possible mainly, if not exclusively due to the study of samples of captured and lend-lease equipment, as well as documentation and production facilities on the territory of the Soviet zone of occupation. in Germany. In general - "there was no happiness, but misfortune helped" the stupid Soviet engineers. But if in relation to the first "Moskvich" and, in part, the first post-war trucks GAZ and ZIS, this train of thought still contains a certain amount of truth, then in relation to "Victory" it cannot but cause some surprise.

Even if you do not recall the pre-war period of the development of this car, one should nevertheless not forget that the main design work on it fell on 1943-1944 - that is, it was carried out long before Soviet specialists got access to any enterprises, documentation or specialists on the territory of Germany, and the assortment of technology that was available in those years for studying did not differ much from the range of structures already known from the pre-war years (in fact, the same German and American cars, which for the most part had already been thoroughly studied by the plant at the end of the 1930s; at best, individual models that had not previously attracted the attention of factory workers, or newer modifications already known to them).

The foundation of the post-war leap in the Soviet automotive industry was laid even before the war, and first of all it concerns the personnel trained in those years who were able to “pull out” this leap, and the production potential accumulated by the end of the thirties, which was an order of magnitude greater than the capabilities of the USSR at the end of 1920. x, when the country's automotive industry was just beginning the transition from the supply of spare parts and overhaul of foreign cars to the production of a full cycle.

The war to a large extent slowed down the processes that had already been going on in the Soviet automotive industry since the late 1930s, and forced many problems to be solved in an emergency, distorted the process of updating the model series of car plants, sometimes beyond recognition. But she was not the reason and the motivating factor for this renewal, and in its course she played a negative role rather than a positive one. In those years, we had to take foreign models as the basis for our cars not because we were so lucky with the prospects that opened up as a result of the war, but because we were unlucky enough to lose more than five years of normal development of this industry due to the war.

If we hypothetically imagine the course of events in which the war never took place (which, given the then foreign policy situation, is an absolute fantasy, but still), then we have to admit that the process of updating the model range of Soviet car factories would have gone on as usual and without such "shakes". It is difficult to consider a serious progress, for example, the release of the Opel Kadett instead of the KIM-10-52 (despite the fact that the latter car was considered by many experts to be more suitable for Soviet conditions) or the external stylization of the post-war cargo lineup for American Lend-Lease technology, adopted instead of the more " civilian design options developed before the war.

This, of course, does not mean that the war did not bring any benefit to the industry at all - take at least the production of light high-speed diesels, analogues of GMC 4-71 and 6-71, established for the first time in the country. However, in this case, it should be noted that these engines were selected for production in the USSR back in 1939, and the deployment of their licensed production in those years was prevented only by the US trade embargo, which was a reaction to the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war, which turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the Great Patriotic War. and is inextricably linked with the already underway at the time of the Second World War. As a result, in order to obtain a set of documentation and production equipment for the diesel engines needed by the national economy, it was necessary to act in a "roundabout way" (they were obtained under the pretext of the need to produce spare parts for diesel Lend-Lease vehicles; see details)... As you can see, there was rather a slowdown in the pace of development - if it were not for the need to move the border away from Leningrad in the light of the approaching war with Germany, the Soviet national economy would have received diesel engines already in 1940-41, and not in 1947-49. I think that to ask the question of which of these tasks was of higher priority at that time is rather strange, because everything is already obvious.

In the case of "Pobeda" specifically, a careful study of the course of events also gives the impression that the war rather damaged than helped this car to be born. In a hypothetical version of the peaceful forties, an alternative "Victory", for the development and refinement of which there would have been an opportunity to spend more time and resources, with a high probability would be a car with a higher technical level, as well as a more powerful six-cylinder engine, which before the war, as then it seemed, seriously and for a long time "registered" under the hood of cars of the Molotov plant. Of course, in this case, this car would have had a different name ...

One way or another, we have to admit the fact that in the current situation it was impossible to do with only one’s own original ideas and possibilities. In the absence of time for expensive and lengthy experiments on stuffing their own cones, the factory workers had only to choose from among the available for study a foreign analogue, close in size and weight, already worked out in mass production and in practice proved its suitability for operation in domestic conditions, and take from it (directly or indirectly) those constructive solutions, the independent development of which caused the greatest difficulties, which, accordingly, could entail the greatest problems in the process of mastering in production.

And here we just came to the first of the legends associated with the "Victory" - the one that says that the Soviet car was a more or less reworked version of the same "Opel Kapiten". So, I had no idea, but the "opelevskaya" "genetics" can still be traced in the design of a number of nodes quite clearly.

In particular, this applies to the front suspension - here it is enough to look at their drawings placed next to them (collage from the site of Artyom Alekseenko):

As you can see, we have in front of us different, but still made clearly according to the same scheme of the suspension with a structure typical for the family of suspensions General Motors Knee-Action... The constructive differences between them are not fundamental in nature and are mainly explained by differences in production technology, the desire of Soviet engineers to strengthen the suspension for operation on bad roads, and also by unification with previous GAZ models.

So, the pivot assembly of the suspension strut at Pobeda has been completely redesigned using a number of parts from the pre-war GAZ-11-73 and has a completely different configuration: at Opel, the pivot knuckle is attached by a pivot to two tides on the rack, the upper and lower, while , like in "Pobeda" everything is quite the opposite - two tides of the steering knuckle cover the only protrusion of the steering column. Such a stand is clearly stronger than the openwork opelevskaya. The hubs and brakes of the "Victory" are also completely their own, the bolt pattern of the wheel studs - "Ford" 5 × 5.5 inches (5 × 139.7 mm) - where it came from, I think there is no need to explain.

According to the owner of "Opel", many of the front suspension parts are even interchangeable - shock absorbers (lever), threaded bushings, possibly even the lower arms.

The difference, however - I repeat - is also quite obvious, and to call the Victory suspension accurate a copy can be well, except that absolutely irrepressible adherents of the theory "blew everything off." The release technology was also clearly developed from scratch, under the existing production equipment.

Here, however, first of all, it must be said that this design was quite advanced for those years, and of course, no one in the USSR had any experience in designing such suspensions - the top of the technologies mastered by that time at GAZ was the dependent suspension " Emki "on longitudinal springs, although it differed favorably from the original" Ford "one on one transverse spring, but still no less archaic by the standards of those years. Gorky residents should have been quite familiar with Opel even before the war, not to mention the presence of large numbers of captured Kapitenovs - it was impossible to miss the opportunity to use as a prototype of one of the most advanced front suspensions in the world at that time.

Practice has shown that such a step was fully justified - no serious problems with the front suspension, a fundamentally new type not only for the plant, but also for the entire automotive industry of the country, was not revealed during operation, even on extremely "raw" cars of the first series it worked without any significant complaints. Developing our own completely original suspension on a tight schedule would hardly have gone so smoothly without experience.

Let's not forget that the USSR, under reparation agreements, had the right to the documentation and technological equipment of the plant. Adam Opel AG in Rüsselheim. And even if the formal side of the agreements did not imply the ability to dispose of the technical achievements of this company as our own (and even "post-factum" - after all, as mentioned above, the main work on the design of the "Victory" was completed even before the end of hostilities), not to understand the inevitability of such a development of events on the part of the Allies would be at least naive. The presence in this case of some kind of informal agreement may also be indicated by the fact that neither from Opel itself nor from its "parent" company - the American General motors- no claims to the USSR arose during the entire production and sales of "Pobeda" and cars made on its modified platform on the international market.

With some changes, variants of the same suspension were also used on the ZIM-e and Volga GAZ-21 of the first and most of the second series - before the introduction of telescopic shock absorbers, which forced a serious change in the suspension design. For the GAZ-24, a completely new suspension was developed, which, although it retained the pivots as a structural element, was a completely different design, not related to the Pobedovskaya one either in terms of design or technology.

The steering of the "Victory" was already significantly different from the "Opel": its steering gear was located in front of the suspension beam, and the "German" - behind it, respectively, the steering gear and the steering linkage had a completely different design.

The brake system for the first time in domestic practice on a mass model was made hydraulic - the solution at that time was no longer advanced, but slowly being introduced into practice (so, "Ford" switched to them just before the war, in 1939)... At the same time, the braking mechanisms themselves remained quite primitive, with one leading block, and in fact differed little from the very first GAZ cars (much more efficient front brakes with two leading pads will be introduced on the GAZ-21).

The wiring system was 12-volt - despite the fact that in those years, many cars still used more capricious 6-volt wiring, for example, the same Fords kept it until the mid-1950s.

Initially, the three-speed gearbox used on the car was made on the basis of the M-1 gearbox and did not have synchronizers (their functions were partially performed by the so-called "easy engagement clutches", which did not cancel the need for double squeezing and rebasing when switching). The gear lever was located on the floor, which by the standards of those years was “low calm”. In the early 1950s, it was replaced by a gearbox from ZIM - with a more modern steering column lever and synchronizers in II and III gears, much more perfect and easy to use at that time.

The rear axle of "Victory" in general terms repeated the bridge from the army off-road vehicle GAZ-67 and had a design that generally goes back to the Ford Model A / GAZ-A and after that has never been repeated in the domestic (and, apparently, world) automotive industry - with axle shafts made integrally with the differential gears and connected to the hub by means of a cone with a key. Such axle shafts are called "three-quarters unloaded", that is, one end of the axle shaft (from the side of the differential) is completely unloaded from bending forces, and the other (from the side of the wheel) is partially unloaded, while most of the efforts are taken by the axle housing itself:

And although formally the semi-axle in this design works under more favorable conditions than in a modern bridge with a semi-unloaded semi-axle, in practice the design turned out to be not very successful in terms of operation and maintenance. So, in order to pull out the axle shaft, it was necessary to completely disassemble the bridge, for which its crankcase was made split. Particular problems were created by the keyed connection of the axle shaft with the hub - if you did not follow the tightening of the hub nut, you could be left without a wheel right on the move due to breaking off the axle shaft in the thinnest part of the cone.

On modern passenger cars, the axle shafts are usually semi-unloaded, made integrally with the hub flange and connected to the differential gears by means of a splined connection, which also relieves the axle shaft from the transmission of forces in the lateral direction.

It is worth noting that the topic of classifying the types of semiaxes is extremely confusing, and in different sources the same construction may have different names. To a certain extent, it sheds light on this issue of the engineer comrade Dumoulin from "Behind the Wheel" as early as 1937. Reading more than curious - I recommend it.

The gears of the main pair had spiral teeth, but their engagement was tapered, and not offset hypoid, as on most modern cars. Such gears could work successfully even on "nigrol" - thick waste from the distillation of Baku naphthenic oils.

Starting from the second production series at Pobeda, for the first time in the mass Soviet automobile industry, a cabin heater coupled with a windshield blower was provided as standard equipment. Moreover, in fact, these were two completely separate systems with a common radiator.

The heating of the interior was carried out only due to the air supplied by gravity into the body from the outside through the retractable "bucket" of the air intake located in front of the windshield:

The air was supplied to the windshield by a fan, but at the same time only in the recirculation mode - with the intake of already heated air from the passenger compartment.

In other words, the interior was fully heated only in motion with an open air intake, and when the car was stationary, warm air almost did not enter it, since there was no backpressure providing it, only glass blowing worked fully. It was also not possible to switch the heater to recirculation mode to quickly warm up the passenger compartment. But on "Pobeda" there was a cabin filter, which purified the air entering from the outside. As far as I know, such a heater design has not been used anywhere else.

Naturally, there was no question of any deflectors that allow directing the air flow, which, however, was quite normal for those years - even on the GAZ-21 the stove, although it received a normal fan that works to heat the passenger compartment, simply pumped it into hot air through the nozzles located on the shield of the engine compartment under the dashboard. Deflectors, however, appeared only on the GAZ-24, but immediately the most convenient type, located on the front of the dashboard, and not like on the Zhiguli - from the top in the middle, equally poorly coping with both interior heating and windshield heating.

I note that in the forties, the heater on many cars was an additional equipment installed by order or as a tuning procedure, and as a rule had the form of a separate box located under the dashboard:

There were no established schemes for the operation of the "climate control system" yet, which explains the abundance of oddities in the heating systems of cars of those years, including "Pobeda".

In general, much was done in Pobeda for the first time in the domestic automotive industry. To the extent that it, in fact, was the first Soviet car, the production of which was prepared entirely on its own. The body of "Pobeda" was the first fully designed and prepared for mass production in the USSR - before that, even for models developed by our own forces (for example, KIM-10), equipment for production was ordered for a lot of money from foreign - American - firms. For the ZIS-110 model, the tooling was made in the USSR, but it was not suitable for mass production, since the dies were cast from zinc-aluminum alloy (TsAM) and could withstand only a limited number of working cycles (which was quite acceptable for a small-scale ZIS-a) ... Now, GAZ has its own production of stamps and molds, which soon began to supply its products to factories under construction in Minsk (MAZ) and Kutaisi (KAZ), and equipment for stamping body elements of the first independently developed model was also made there. "Moskvich" ("Moskvich-402/407").

It is worth noting that the origin of the molds on which the Pobeda body was produced is, to a certain extent, a mystery. In any case, I have never seen any definite and unambiguously reliable information on this matter.

Before the war, the USSR did not have its own production of molds of this size for car bodies; its sudden appearance during the war years or in the first months after its end also looks rather unlikely. We will probably never know in detail where, by whom and how these molds were made. At the moment, I am ready to accept any option, up to the fact that their production was ordered abroad, for example - to some enterprise located in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany.

In particular, the already mentioned Ambi-Budd enterprise, located in the suburbs of Berlin and after the war, found itself in the Soviet zone of occupation, was very suitable for such a task. Subsequently, part of the equipment from it "surfaced" in the East German Eisenach at the Avtovelo plant, which produced cars and bicycles for reparation deliveries to the USSR, part of it was transferred to Ford and installed at its production facilities. And some - “disappeared in an unknown direction” ...

Similar questions arise in relation to the molds on which the Moskvich-400 was produced - in relation to which it has already been quite reliably proven that practically all the work on its design was carried out on the territory of Germany by joint Soviet-German design bureaus. Dolmatovsky's rather vague phrases that the equipment for its production was "supplied by Soviet factories" sound somewhat ambiguous in our time in the light of the fact that enterprises subordinate to the Soviet occupation administration were formally considered Soviet in terms of state affiliation (for example, those produced by the same by the Avtovelo plant for reparation deliveries to the USSR, BMW cars were formally considered domestically produced cars).

However, there is also no reason to write off the possibility of making molds in the USSR itself - one should not forget that very similar equipment is used, in particular, at aircraft factories for the production of large-sized aluminum cladding parts, so that some experience in the manufacture of similar products should still was there.

Of course, it was not without the "lumpy first pancake": in comparison with the later GAZ vehicles, the supporting body of the "Victory" turned out to be very weak, which is perfectly visible from the state of the specimens that looked good on our roads. A particularly serious drawback in our climatic conditions was that almost the entire body was stamped from sheet metal of the same thickness. (apparently, the post-war shortage of any rolled steel affected - and there was no question of setting its thickness individually for each element in accordance with the load): this forced designers to use metal in two or even three layers in loaded places to ensure strength - a "layer cake", inside of which corrosion developed magnificently.

The abundance of "double" and even "triple" sections and parts connected by "overlapping" welding points was a problem for all cars on this platform, but it was especially noticeable on "Pobeda".

Largely in connection with this, on the next model, the Volga GAZ-21, we observe such an abundance of thick metal and a sharp jump in the quality of anti-corrosion treatment. The manufacturing technology of the "Pobedovsky" body was generally very imperfect, associated with many adjustments and the widespread use of unproductive manual labor. However, one should not forget that this “first pancake” was a very valuable experience, without which there would be no ZIM seven-seat monocoque body, unique for its time, or very successful GAZ-21 and GAZ-24 bodies.

Subsequently, since 1955, the already modernized "Pobeda" - M-20V, or "third series", went into production. She had a modified design of the front end, interior and many other improvements.

Now the time has come to analyze one more, not just a legend, but simply interesting information related to Pobeda.

Was "Pobeda" the world's first large-scale car with a "pontoon", "wingless" body characteristic of the post-war era? No, it was not! But the gap with the really first car with such a body shape was only about a month.

They were American cars produced by the same brands Kaiser and Frazer:

It is curious that in some domestic sources one can find information that the pontoon has already appeared on the "Kaiser" after"Victory". And, apparently, this is not a "postscript" from an excess of patriotic feelings - just the researchers of the issue were misled by the advertising ploy used by the Kaiser-Fraser company when launching this car into series.

Although production actually started on May 29 calendar 1946, the vehicle was declared "Model 1947"- despite the fact that model the year usually begins around the fall of the previous calendar (when the production equipment gets up for maintenance and it becomes possible to reconfigure it for a new model); that is, "according to the rules" the model launched in May should have been dated back to 1946, well - at least - "1946 and a half" (1946 ½) model year. The hint that the creators of "Kaiser" wanted to throw to the public is quite understandable - "Car from tomorrow today"... But, unfortunately, a person who is not familiar with the concept of the model year adopted in the West can be very confused.

The Kaisers themselves were very interesting cars.

Later, however, the low functionality of such a body was revealed; in particular, due to the sloping roof, the ceiling height above the rear seat was lowered, the rearward view was very poor due to the small, strongly inclined rear window, and at a relatively high speed of movement nasty aerodynamic effects associated with the occurrence of lift from for the wing-shaped profile of a car and a strong susceptibility to its drift by a side wind, which in those years, even before the use of blowing in wind tunnels in the automotive industry, they did not know how to fight.

In addition, there were two "varieties" of fastbacks - with an ugly humped tailgate, but with a full-fledged trunk, and with an elegant teardrop-shaped tailgate, but practically without a trunk. "Victory" was approximately halfway between these extremes, and the situation with it can be described as an "unfortunate compromise": her rear end was not as elegant as, say, the Chevrolet-Aerosedan, and the trunk was more than modest volume, mainly serving to store a spare wheel and a set of tools - the remaining space was only enough for a couple of small suitcases.

Because of all this, the fastback body did not take root anywhere in the world on general-purpose cars, and by the mid-1950s it was almost completely replaced by a three-compartment sedan.

Changed tastes of buyers were added to this: if at the end of the thirties and forties torpedo-shaped, "licked" forms were popular - a style that was embodied in "fastbacks" - then in the fifties a direction appeared and began to rapidly develop, which later led to the famous " fin style ". With the cheap fuel prices and the increased demands of American consumers for the appearance of the car, style began to clearly triumph over aerodynamics. Distribution received design findings that looked "cool", but completely killed any attempts to give the body a streamlined shape - like the same fins or visors over the headlights, playing the role of huge "brake parachutes". In this style, "fastbacks" no longer fit, with the result that by the 1954-55 model years in the United States, they finally died out ( although attempts to revive them did not stop until it actually took place in the mid-sixties - but already within the framework of a completely different style).

The last fastback in that era was the 1954 Hudson Wasp, which had a transitional style, having received small fins at the stern:

The main shortcomings of this type of body were corrected on it, in particular, the rearward view was improved due to the introduction of a strongly curved rear window and two small additional windows behind the doors, the volume of the trunk was increased due to the "hump" on its lid, which gave the car a certain resemblance to a conventional three-volume sedan. It is impossible not to note the amazing modernity the shape of this body: the vast majority of large sedans of the 2010s have a very similar wedge-shaped profile, with a short high trunk and a strongly extended rear roof. However, in those years, even in this form, the body turned out to be unpopular, losing the competition to the three-volume sedan, which became the de facto standard for decades to come.

Pobeda modernization project. Lev Eremeev, 1951.

At one time, they also tried to update the Pobeda body in a similar way at GAZ, changing the shape of the rear fenders, but, for obvious enough reasons, this option did not go into the series - it did not give any increase in the technical qualities of the car, and it won the vision of giving the body more modern contours was already small in the early fifties. The GAZ-20V, which went into production in 1955, had the same rear end as the previous modification.

By the way, one of the cars designed in Gorky to replace Pobeda, the Star designed by John Williams, was also a fastback with large fins at the stern, but the Volga with a three-volume body also won in the USSR.

Some surge in the popularity of "fastbacks", and only two-door, came in the United States later, in the mid-sixties, now - in connection with the fashion for pseudo-sports cars, such as the first generation Dodge Charger, which had just such a body; but it ended very quickly, this time already in view of the fact that by the beginning of the 1970s, two-door fastbacks, like other traditional types of two-door bodies, such as two-door sedans and coupes, quickly began to be replaced by more practical three-door hatchbacks with a third door in the rear wall body. After that, the use of this type of body was only occasional.

Actually, in the USSR, apparently, already in the first years of the release of a new car, they well understood that they miscalculated a little with the type of body, but because of their "busyness" and relatively high cost, none of the options for converting into a sedan was implemented - about them described in the article about.

True, thanks to the ever-memorable irrepressible creative energy of our compatriots, we still have the opportunity "in metal" to see how a sedan based on "Victory" might look like. Moreover, such an opportunity was provided to us not by professional designers and constructors, but by some unknown, but clearly very rugged Master, who welded a narrowed ZIM rear to the convertible (!). And after that, some Sinepisalochniks still say that in the USSR, de, there was no tuning! There was, gentlemen, and even what, admire, this is not for you "Dviglo from behi to stick"; the combination of scarcity with numerous freebies available for work and a lot of free time is a terrible force.

In addition, much later a sedan based on the "Pobeda" clone - "Warsaw" - was produced in Poland:

Moreover, as one would expect from the restyling of the model of the mid-1940s, it looked very strange, if not to say otherwise: to the front of the “Victory” and its lower part of the body, minimally changed due to the wide plastic “mouth” of the radiator grill were attached an angular roof in the characteristic style of the sixties (the doors and frames of the side windows remained old, Victory) and an eerie-looking long and high coffin-like tailgate with vertical lanterns. In this form, the car was produced right up to 1973 (!), And in total, "Warsaw" made even more than the original "Victories", apparently not because the Poles liked it so much (which is very unlikely, knowing them " love "to everything Russian), but because, well, they lacked something to launch" their "more modern car into the series, although there were plenty of such projects.

For example, there was an even more eerie project of restyling into a sedan with an extremely eclectic modified front, which most of all looked like the front of a ZIL truck - fortunately, it did not go into production. And in 1959, the Poles were smart enough to turn to the Italians from Ghia, who knew a lot about design, who created for them quite a decent design project for the new generation of Warsaw, although in some places they clearly gave away Lanci, - however, in the series also and did not go. Subsequently, in 1964, the Poles themselves, but, obviously, still taking the idea of ​​the Italians as a basis, as can be seen from a number of design details, such as the rear lights, created their prototype - Warszawa 210, by the way, also quite decent look (in a certain degree reminiscent of the Ford Taunus that went into series later, in the mid-seventies) - but it was not launched into the series either.

Later, at the same plant, they began to make an initially licensed (and later produced without any license) clone "Fiat" model "125" (but with units from the older model "1300/1500"). It was quite close in appearance to our Fiat-124 / VAZ-2101, even unified with a “penny” in a number of details (like door handles, which at the same time differed from those on the original Fiats), but at the same time a little larger and more archaic constructively - in particular, it had a spring suspension at the rear and an old lower shaft motor.

However, let's get back directly to "Victory".

Having dealt with the basic fastback sedan, let's move on to a more interesting modification with a convertible body, produced from 1949 to 1953:

In principle, calling this car a convertible is not entirely correct, because as a rule, in our time, this term means a car, with the awning raised and the windows lowered, completely devoid of any protrusions above the belt line, with the exception of the windshield. The open "Pobeda" (index - M-20B) had rigid body sidewalls and door frames with glass.

Such, as in the open "Victory", the body type is correctly called "cabriolimousine" (in the German manner), or cabrio coach / semi-convertible, "semi-cabriolet" (in English). In fact, it is a kind of sunroof, covered with a fabric awning. In Germany, a lot of such cars were produced, both before and after the war, although in the post-war years these were usually piece alterations of serial models by various small-scale private body shops and firms (of which the most famous was Webasto, which still exists and producing, in particular, preheaters for automobile engines). In addition, in the vast majority of cases, only two-door cars were altered this way, especially in the case of a monocoque body. GAZ took a difficult path, but it made it possible to preserve the serial doors and doorways of the four-door "Victory".

This decision made it possible not only to prevent a significant decrease in the strength of the car (which, I recall, had a load-bearing body), but also to avoid the extremely busy alteration of doors and side windows for a real convertible, which promised to be that kind of work, especially given the presence of four doors. Indeed, on a full-fledged convertible, the glasses pass their way from the extremely lower to the extremely upper position along a complex trajectory, due to which in the upper position they “converge”, forming a continuous surface, and on the way to the lower position, they diverge, in addition, the glass frames are made lightweight and removed together with the glasses themselves, or are simply absent. Actually, after the war, four-door convertibles were practically not made at all, and almost all open models had two doors.

It is very interesting that the creators of the former exception to this rule of the four-door convertible on the basis of the more expensive version of the already mentioned "Kaiser" - the Frazer Manhattan car of the 1950 model - went essentially along the same path as the designers of the M-20B, leaving the non-retractable door frames :

In fairness, it must be said that the Americans nevertheless designed the car more aesthetically, completely cutting off all the rudiments of the roof and using elegant chrome glass frames instead of massive standard ones, in addition to which they had to introduce additional glass between them, which took the place of the central pillar. But the Kaiser was a frame machine, and they had the ability to convert its body almost completely open, simply by using a reinforced frame with an X-shaped insert for increased rigidity; and at the "Victory" it was also necessary to leave the sidewall arcs, which played the role of important power elements in its load-bearing body.

The folding of this "super-hat" is described on the website of Artyom Alekseenko, and it was not a very simple procedure. Apparently because of this, and also - the obvious impracticality in the climate of most of the USSR, despite the 14,222 produced copies, convertibles were not particularly popular, except perhaps in some of the southern republics. Only a few specimens have survived to this day. It is very interesting that some convertibles in the process of operation have acquired a hard roof from a conventional sedan. In our time, on the contrary, sedans are sawn for convertibles ...

By the way, the retail price of the convertible was lower than that of the sedan - apparently, this was done to attract buyers to this type of body. Despite the seeming logic at first glance, there is no roof! - in fact, it was almost the only case in the history of the post-war world automotive industry. But the buyer “wasn’t led to this,” so mass convertibles based on serial cars in the USSR were no longer made after that (the only thing was that a convertible was also produced in the same years, more precisely - the same convertible, based on “Moskvich-400”; “ disabled women "S-1L and S-3A, as well as GAZ-69, UAZ, LuAZ and similar cars with a clearly simplified utilitarian body, I do not include here).

For a long time, the existing version that the release of the convertible was associated with a shortage of sheet metal, I perceived as legendary. It is in this form that it really is nonsense - the mass of "Victory" - a convertible more than a sedan, by 30 ... 35 kg (due to the numerous amplifiers added to its design to compensate for the absence of a roof), that is, in order to save metal, it was necessary, in theory, to produce sedans.

However, such facts as massive deliveries of cabrio-cabriolets to taxi fleets in Novosibirsk (!) And other very “southern” places still make us think at least about the presence of rational grain in it.

However, with a proviso: we should not talk about rolled steel "in general", but about a specific product - a sheet of special soft, well-stretched steel that has a non-standard, very large width, which is used for stamping roof panels. Before the war, due to the lack of such a brand of rental and the technology of large-sized stamping, sometimes a roof was made with an insert of leatherette ("Emka"), or even completely leatherette on a wooden frame. In general, as mentioned, the metal consumption of the convertible "by weight" was higher than that of the base sedan - due to the strengthening of the body.

Along with the factory version, there was a small-scale version of the open "Victory" for military parades in provincial districts - ordinary serial convertibles were not very convenient for this because of the door glass frames that thoroughly closed the officer receiving the parade. She generally had no roof, no glass frames, no side windows themselves, no normal awning. The left rear door was welded tightly to reinforce the body. The military NII-21 in the city of Bronnitsy produced such machines. He also did something similar on the basis of the GAZ-21 and GAZ-24, and already in our time we had to see photos of similar cars even on the basis of the GAZ-3110.

Another interesting car based on Pobeda is the all-wheel drive M-72 from 1955-58 (this car did not have a personal name, in particular, it was never called Pobeda):

Often referred to as the world's first comfortable SUV. Well, in fact, in about the same years, similar cars were created in other countries, for example, since 1940, the American company Marmon-Herrington on indorders assembled on the basis of passenger cars Ford and Mercury comfortable four-wheel drive vehicles with sedan, station wagon and van ", like these:

But nevertheless, these were originally frame cars, which made them rather conceptual analogues of the earlier Soviet GAZ-61-73 based on Emka. Moreover, the single scale of their production allows us to speak more of tuning.

More massive was the all-wheel drive version of the French model. Renault Colorale Tout Terrain, produced in 1952-1956, but in this case we have a frame car, moreover, it was originally created with a frame chassis, and even more reminiscent of a truck chassis rather than a frame passenger car. Suburban vehicles with all-wheel drive, similar in concept, were also produced in the USA - and also on a purely cargo frame chassis.

The residents of Gorky have created a similar car on the basis of "Pobeda", retaining its load-bearing body, albeit in a reinforced version. And although such a decision was to some extent forced, it is precisely this decision that allows us to consider this model outstanding not only in the framework of the Soviet automobile industry, but also at the world level.

A total of 4,677 copies of the M-72 were produced, which were successfully operated mainly on collective farms and state farms and "on the virgin lands" (and there, mostly, and ended their life).

It is worth noting that the M-72 was neither a simple modification of the serial Pobeda with a front drive axle, nor its body mounted on units from the GAZ-69. In fact, it was a design largely made from scratch, albeit with wide unification with the existing models of the plant, including, of course, the M-20 and GAZ-69. At the same time, almost all units he has his own or, at least, noticeably modified.

So, the M-72 engine was equipped with a K-22D carburetor, instead of K-22A on the M-20 and K-22I on the GAZ-69, and had an oil cooler in the lubrication system, providing additional cooling when driving off-road, as well as a number of other small differences.

The M-72 gearbox is similar to the "Victory", and differs from the GAZ-69 with a side cover designed to drive the gear change from the steering column lever.

In the transfer case, which is generally identical in design to the GAZ-69, the shift levers were changed, which were not straight, but curved - enveloping the front sofa-type seat, which was transferred to the M-72 from Pobeda.

The main thing is that the M-72 bridges were by no means taken directly from the GAZ-69, but are unique for this particular car.

Front axle, with a generally similar "goat" design (in the M-72 Operation Manual, even an illustration of its partial section along the constant velocity hinge was taken from the GAZ-69 Operation Manual without changes) was shortened by several centimeters at the expense of crankcase stockings in order to adjust the wheel track to the width of the Pobeda body (track reduced from 1440 mm to 1355 mm).

The rear axle is a completely original design, somewhat reminiscent of the bridge of the future "Volga" GAZ-21 with flanged semi-unloaded semi-axles, but at the same time with a conical main pair from the GAZ-69. The track of its wheels is also less than that of the GAZ-69. (1380 mm)... They say that the same or a very similar bridge was also put on the Polish vans "Nysa" and "Zhuk" (on the units of the Polish "Victory" - "Warsaw").

For comparison, in "Pobeda" the axle shafts of the rear axle are unloaded by ¾ and have a keyed connection with the hub - not the most reliable solution even for a road car, let alone an all-terrain vehicle. And on the GAZ-69, the axle shafts are completely unloaded, their flanges come out of the hub and are bolted to it from the outside (like in the UAZ), which allows you to remove the axle shaft for inspection or replacement without disassembling the bridge itself or even jacking up the cars (a nice opportunity for field repair army all-terrain vehicle, but, perhaps, not so useful for a more "civilized" machine, and hardly compensating for the complexity of the design).

In cars with owners installed bridges from GAZ-69, the wheels protrude noticeably from the wheel arches and the rear arches flaps are not worn without trimming.

At the same time, the wheelbase of the M-72 is, on the contrary, somewhat larger than that of the "Pobeda" (and much more than that of the GAZ-69).

The body, of course, has been significantly strengthened, and has many characteristic features that are not characteristic of the "Victory". In fact, we can talk about the presence of a frame integrated into the body of the M-72, somewhat similar to that of the Niva and many modern SUVs.

A little-known fact - even the front and rear fenders of this car differed from the serial Pobedov fenders, although they were made partly using the same stamps: the front fenders of the M-72 have a lower wheel arch cutout and a reinforced flange in the form of a wing protruding beyond the surface roller, at the rear - the profile of the cutout flange has also been changed and there are holes for installing a mud flap (in more detail about the differences in bodywork "Victory" of different issues and M-72 cm.).

In the end, it turned out to be an interesting, but, alas, too complicated and expensive machine to manufacture, which largely undermined the original idea of ​​obtaining a relatively inexpensive and maximally unified with a serial "passenger car" comfortable all-terrain vehicle.

The point was, in particular, that the assembly technology of the M-72 was seriously different from the usual "Victory". So, if during the assembly of the latter, the front suspension and the power unit previously assembled on the beam were installed on its body in one technological step, then the M-72 front suspension looked like a bridge on springs, without a fixed beam carrying the power unit, and the engine was fastened through special brackets directly on the body side members, which forced them to be installed in several separate operations, to which were also added operations to install a transfer case separate from the gearbox and additional propeller shafts.

In view of such significant technological differences, it was not possible to assemble these cars in the general flow - a significant part of the time the M-72 was carried out at a separate production site, which greatly complicated and slowed down the process of their manufacture.

It is for this reason that this line of Gorky cars, unfortunately, did not have a continuation - although it is worth noting that equipping GAZ cars with all-wheel drive remained a very popular topic and later, it is enough to recall the all-wheel drive station wagon GAZ-22 or built directly at the GAZ-24-95 plant. ...

Export sales of Pobeda are a very interesting topic.

In principle, it was generally one of the first massively exported Soviet passenger cars.

There are two directions of export - east and west.

The first was mainly represented by China and North Korea (pictured above is Stalin Street in Pyongyang in 1959; note the newest Volga M-21 and the M-72 SUV).

As they say, a batch of cars for Chinese comrades had blue plastic, which is traditionally considered a symbol of good luck in the Celestial Empire. Perhaps, of course, this is a bike.

In North Korea, they even wanted to establish local production, but apparently things did not go beyond the release of several prototypes. By the way, given that it is quite tight with passenger cars even today, the question arises: would not the production of Pobeda continue there in our time, would the Koreans be able to establish it in due time? ..

In Europe outside the socialist bloc, the bulk of Victory deliveries came to Finland, Sweden, Norway and other Scandinavian countries, in which climatic and road conditions were very similar to those for which the car was created.

In Finland, "Pobedy" for a long time formed the basis of the taxi car fleet. For the first time, a batch of them was purchased before the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, after which Soviet cars quickly ousted motley old American models from taxi fleets, and later they were ousted by 21 Volgas. Until the late fifties, probably in the early sixties, the following scenes were not uncommon on the streets of Helsinki: