GAZ-55 was a Soviet ambulance vehicle (an emergency medical vehicle) produced on the chassis of the "polutorka" truck from the Gorky Automobile Plant. Production was set up in 1938 at the GAZ branch in Gorky.[1][2] It became the most widely produced and popular ambulance van of its time in the USSR.[3]

Development and design

Before the GAZ-55 appeared, attempts had been made in the USSR to create an ambulance on the chassis of the GAZ-A passenger car: in 1934 an ambulance van based on it was built in Gorky, but the design proved inconvenient — the vehicle could carry only one patient lying on a stretcher, and the total production run did not exceed roughly 200 units.[3] A far more successful platform turned out to be the chassis of the GAZ-AA truck (the "polutorka," or "one-and-a-half-tonner"): it provided the necessary body volume and load capacity for a full-fledged ambulance compartment.[3] The GAZ-55 belongs to the same production period as other specialized modifications based on the GAZ-AA chassis: the gas-generator GAZ-42 and the half-track GAZ-60, which entered series production at the same time as it, in 1938.[2]

According to restoration sources, the GAZ-55 had an enclosed van body with an ambulance compartment designed for stretchers and medical equipment, which gave it a fundamental advantage over its passenger-car predecessor.[3]

Production at the Gorky Automobile Plant

Production of the GAZ-55 was set up at a branch of the Gorky Automobile Plant.[4] According to other sources, it was part of the plant's own production program alongside other specialized vehicles built on the polutorka chassis (the GAZ-AA, a one-and-a-half-ton truck).[1][2] In the plant's official model classification, the GAZ-55 is included in the GAZ-AA family.[5]

Among restorers, surviving examples of the GAZ-55 are extremely rare. As of the mid-2010s, a surviving original GAZ-55 chassis with elements of the original ambulance body was discovered by a restoration workshop in St. Petersburg, which had previously been engaged in recreating an earlier ambulance based on the GAZ-A.[3]

Sources

  1. 5koleso.ru — Gorky Automobile Plant (archive)
  2. nashi-avto.ru — NAZ, GAZ
  3. drive2.ru — Ambulance GAZ-A — GAZ-AA, gasoline, 3.3 L, 1936 — Restoration
  4. gruz-avto.com — Історія підприємства ГАЗ (Горьковський автомобільний завод).. Статті компанії «Інтернет-маркет gruz-avto.com — ваш шлях до надійної роботи на дорозі!»
  5. ru.cars.photo — GAZ Plant. History, model range, photos
  6. lib-avt.ru — The Palace of Culture of the Gorky Automobile Plant (DK GAZ) turns 55! — Centralized Library System of Avtozavodsky District, Nizhny Novgorod