The GAZ-64 was the first Soviet mass-produced army off-road vehicle, developed at the Gorky Automobile Plant in the spring of 1941. It was produced from August 1941 to April 1943; 672 units were built.[1][2]
Fifty-one days
Design work began on 3 February 1941. People's Commissar of Medium Machine Building V. A. Malyshev assigned the task to designer Vitaly Grachyov; the American Bantam and Willys, known from magazines, were taken as references. Grachyov completed the finished off-roader in 51 days — a timeframe that has remained a memorable line in the plant's history.[1][2]
Such speed was possible because the people of Gorky had already mastered four-wheel drive on the GAZ-61, and components were drawn from production already in place.
Design
The four-cylinder gasoline engine, with a displacement of 3285 cm³, produced 50 hp. It had a 4×4 wheel arrangement, a crew of four, a top speed of 60 km/h, and fuel consumption of about 14 liters per 100 km.[1]
What came out of it
The GAZ-64 chassis became the basis for the BA-64 armored car — the most numerous armored vehicle of the Red Army. The off-roader itself was rather quickly replaced by the GAZ-67: the main complaint against the GAZ-64 was its narrow track, which made the vehicle handle poorly on the road and kept it from fitting into ruts left by other traffic.[3]
Sources
- militaryarms.ru — Military Weapons — GAZ-64: the vehicle's development history and design features (archive)
- warways.ru — GAZ-64 — development history and technical specifications
- autonews.ru — GAZ-67 vehicle: technical specifications, history, design (archive)