The GAZ-63 was the first mass-produced Soviet all-wheel-drive truck, built by the Gorky Automobile Plant from 1948 to 1968. A total of 474,464 units were produced.[1][2] It was the all-wheel-drive counterpart to the base GAZ-51 ("Gazon"): both models were built on shared components and ran down the same assembly line.
A long road to production
The first prototypes of the future model 63 were built before the war, in 1939 and 1940, but the truck could not be brought into production at the time: the plant switched to military equipment. Series production resumed only in 1948.[1]
All-wheel drive gave the truck off-road capability that the GAZ-51 lacked: the vehicle handled unpaved roads and rough terrain confidently, which made it the Soviet army's main medium truck and the workhorse of geologists, communications crews, and agriculture.
Legacy
The GAZ-63 chassis served as the basis for flatbed, ambulance, command, and special-purpose vehicles, as well as platforms for radio stations and tank trucks. The direct successor to the line of Gorky all-wheel-drive trucks was the cab-over GAZ-66, which entered production in 1964.
Sources
- bibimot.ru — Bibimot — GAZ-63, the first mass-produced all-wheel-drive truck of the USSR (archive)
- ixbt.com — Enhanced off-road capability: the GAZ-63 all-wheel-drive truck of the USSR that became a rarity (archive)