From Ford to GAZ. 90 years of lorry
The first NAZ-AA serial truck assembled in Nizhny Novgorod, photo: https://museum.gaz.ru
On January 29, 1932, the first Soviet lorry, the legendary GAZ-AA truck with a carrying capacity of 1,5 tons, rolled off the assembly line of the automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The car worked for many years for the benefit of the national economy of the USSR and endured all the hardships of the Great Patriotic War, throughout the conflict remaining the main cargo vehicle of the Red Army.
In total, almost a million copies of the legendary lorry were assembled in Gorky (in October 1932, Nizhny Novgorod was decided to be renamed Gorky) and other cities of the Soviet Union, to which the epithet "legendary" is fully applicable. It was the most massive Soviet truck; the first serial car of the new automobile plant in Gorky; the first truck that conquered the Karakum desert and started working in the Arctic. In addition, GAZ-AA became the main symbol of the famous "Road of Life", which helped to alleviate the plight of besieged Leningrad.
On June 20, 1941, there were more than 151 thousand GAZ-AA and GAZ-MM trucks in the Red Army units. Until the end of the war, Soviet industry managed to produce another 138 of these trucks. At the same time, a huge number of "lorries" were mobilized during the war years to the front from the national economy.
According to official statistics, 985 thousand GAZ-AA trucks and their modifications were assembled at four automobile plants in the USSR for the entire time of production. In addition, the base of the truck was actively used to create other vehicles: buses, dump trucks, tankers, fire trucks and armored vehicles.
From Ford Model AA to GAZ-AA
On March 4, 1929, the Soviet government decided to build an automobile plant in the country capable of producing 100 cars a year. Ten days later, on March 14, the Avtostroy organization was founded in the USSR, which became the leader in the construction of a new plant. On May 31, 1929, an agreement was concluded between the American company Ford Motor Company and the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR on rendering technical assistance to the Soviet Union in the construction of an automobile plant and the establishment of the production of trucks and cars.
Ford Model AA truck, photo: wikimedia.org
The deal was beneficial for the parties. In the Soviet Union, which inherited the remains of the undeveloped automotive industry of the Russian Empire, everything was very bad with the auto industry and specialists. The young state had neither the strength nor the time to design its own cars. In turn, the Ford leadership, which then faced the manifestations of the Great Depression, willingly agreed to cooperate with class enemies. As they say: "nothing personal, just business."
The Soviet side liked the simple truck Ford Model AA, which the USSR first bought ready-made car kits, and then for many years produced under license at an enterprise built by American specialists. The first American trucks on Soviet soil were already assembled on February 1, 1930. It was, as they would say now, a screwdriver assembly from Ford parts at the first Gudok Oktyabrya car assembly plant in Kanavin (Nizhny Novgorod).
On May 1, 1930, the ceremony of laying the first stone in the foundation of the future automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod took place. The plant was designed by the American architectural bureau Albert Kahn, the technical management of the construction was carried out by the American company Austin, whose specialists spent about 1,5 years in Nizhny Novgorod. For the Austin business, which was facing the consequences of the Great Depression, the contract in Soviet Russia was a real salvation.
Under the terms of the contract, Austin engineers, who had previously built a car plant in Michigan for General Motors in 7 months, had to repeat a similar trick in Nizhny Novgorod, relying on local construction and labor personnel. As a result, the work took 1,5 years, but still it turned out very quickly.
After 18 months, on November 1, 1931, the first stage of construction was successfully completed: 52 workshop buildings were built, 38 kilometers of access and intra-factory railway lines, 22 kilometers of highways were laid. During the construction, 25 thousand tons of metal and 230 thousand cubic meters of concrete were used. More than 6 thousand different machine tools and about 8 thousand electric motors were placed in the workshops.
Built buildings of the GAZ plant, photo: https://museum.gaz.ru
In November 1931, Austin specialists in Nizhny Novgorod were replaced by Ford specialists, who were supposed to help Soviet engineers set up serial production of cars and help in the commissioning period. On January 1, 1932, the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant (NAZ) was officially commissioned, Stepan Semyonovich Dybets became its first director.
80 years ago, on January 29, 1932, the first production truck, called NAZ-AA, rolled off the NAZ assembly line. This name lasted until October 1932, when Nizhny Novgorod was renamed Gorky. Since then, the Nizhny Novgorod auto giant has been known exclusively as GAZ. Under the same brand, new generations of trucks and commercial vehicles are still being produced here.
Construction of a lorry
In the USA, the Ford Model AA was mass-produced from 1927 to 1932; in the Soviet Union, the lorry lasted much longer on the assembly line, continuing to be actively used in the national economy even after production was completed until the early 1960s. At the same time, starting from 1933, trucks were assembled in the USSR exclusively from domestic components.
It was a structurally simple and technologically advanced truck that the Soviet industry was able to produce even in the most difficult periods of the Great Patriotic War. The GAZ-AA car was made according to the classical scheme on a frame chassis equipped with a spring suspension with a 4x2 wheel arrangement.
GAZ-AA truck, photo: https://goskatalog.ru the original is stored in the State Museum stories St. Petersburg
A feature of the car was an unusual transmission, in which a “pushing pipe” (torque tube) was used as a longitudinal thrust, inside of which there was a closed cardan shaft, in Russian the whole system can be called a cardan shaft pipe. A similar scheme was typical for many American cars of those years. At the same time, the frame also performed part of the functions of the spring as a suspension element. The design was largely controversial, but no one changed it.
The heart of the truck was a four-cylinder carbureted engine, paired with a four-speed manual gearbox and producing 40 hp. With. The engine featured an impressive compression ratio of 4,25 and phenomenal unpretentiousness. It was virtually impossible to break it, while the engine consumed exclusively low-octane gasoline, which was an advantage for operation in the USSR. In hot weather, the engine could even run on kerosene.
Over time, the engine on the GAZ-AA was replaced with a new version of the GAZ-MM engine with a capacity of 50 liters. s., which was also installed on the famous GAZ-M1 passenger car (popularly nicknamed "Emka"). A truck with such an engine was produced under the designation GAZ-MM, without any external differences from its predecessors.
An interesting feature was the location of the gas tank, which was located in front of the cabin, designed for two people: a driver and a passenger. We can say that the gas tank was located directly behind the dashboard, and its neck was located directly in front of the windshield. There was no gas pump on the truck, gasoline from the gas tank flowed by gravity into the carburetor, the design of which did not allow excess gasoline to enter the cylinders.
The process of refueling GAZ-AA from a tanker based on the ZIS-5, photo: https://waralbum.ru
There were no special external differences between the GAZ-AA and its Ford ancestor. The cars were as similar as possible to each other. At the same time, naturally, in the USSR, only domestic components and assemblies were used in the production, the production of which was established by the Soviet industry. For example, instead of the American Zenith carburetor, the Soviet K-14 was used, etc.
All design diagrams and drawings of the truck were converted from inch to metric. Also, the Soviet version received a modified steering assembly, an air filter, which for some reason was absent on the American truck, and a reinforced clutch housing. Over time, the frame was also strengthened for operation in Soviet realities. The truck also used an onboard wooden body developed in the USSR.
"The road of life"
The Great Patriotic War made a real hero out of an ordinary truck, which is a symbol of Victory along with a tank T-34, Katyusha rocket launcher, Il-2 attack aircraft and other examples of Soviet weapons. The unpretentious truck, which was produced throughout the war years, remained the main truck of the Red Army in the most difficult and difficult years of the war.
In wartime, the design of the car was simplified as much as possible. The military versions were distinguished primarily by welded rectangular fenders (replaced by elegant stampings), the absence of gable rear wheels, and one headlight instead of two. They saved as much as possible on equipment, the cabin could be wooden, there were no doors, and one wiper instead of two was installed on the windshield. In addition, military vehicles sometimes had no brakes on the front axle.
Evacuation of residents from besieged Leningrad along the "Road of Life", photo: https://waralbum.ru
A small truck with a carrying capacity of 1 kg was subjected to a lot of tests. In the terrible winter from 500 to 1941, GAZ-AA and GAZ-MM became the symbol of the "Road of Life" and the main vehicle that worked on this route linking besieged Leningrad with the rest of the country. The first lorries hit the hardened ice of Ladoga on November 1942, 22. It was a convoy of 1941 trucks, to which sledges were additionally attached.
Already in the first winter from November 1941 to April 1942, the ice track with a length of about 30 kilometers was serviced by about four thousand trucks, most of them were the famous lorries. About a quarter of them did not return to base. In addition, the road was constantly served by 350 traffic controllers located at 75 posts, and about a hundred fuel trucks based on the ZIS-5.
The significance of the work of this ice track, the movement along which was fraught with the risk of not only falling through the ice, but also becoming a victim of German shelling or an air raid, for a starving city cannot be estimated. During the operation of the first ice track from November 1941 to April 1942, more than 550 thousand people were evacuated from the city by empty cars, and more than 361 thousand tons of various cargoes were brought to Leningrad from the mainland, of which 262 thousand tons were food.
Trucks GAZ-AA and GAZ-MM, drowned during the work of the "Road of Life", continue to lift from the bottom of Lake Ladoga to this day. Some of them are being restored and used as monuments, while others are brought to a running state and replenish museum and private collections, participating in parades and reconstructions.
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