The GAZ-3105 "Volga" is an experimental flagship sedan from the Gorky Automobile Plant with permanent all-wheel drive and an eight-cylinder engine. The start of production was announced with fanfare in 1992, but the project was shut down in 1996 after barely more than fifty cars had been built.[1][2]
The most ambitious "Volga"
The GAZ-3105 was conceived as a fundamentally new top-class car: permanent all-wheel drive, a V8 engine, a design that was advanced by the standards of the late 1980s.[2] For a plant that had spent decades turning out modernizations of a single platform, this was an attempt to leap a generation ahead.
The leap did not happen, for economic reasons: the announced price held at around 80 thousand dollars — on a par with the BMW 7 Series.[1] No buyer for such a car was found in Russia of the early 1990s, and the cost of small-batch assembly refused to come down.
The fate of the GAZ-3105 repeated itself once more at the end of the decade — with the GAZ-3111, just as advanced and just as unaffordable.
Sources
- 5koleso.ru — 5 Koleso — The history of the GAZ-3105: sweet fantasy and the bitter truth of the new "Volga" (archive)
- autonews.ru — A breakthrough to nowhere. A look at the unique "Volga" GAZ-3105 (archive)