The first Soviet diesel truck, the YaAZ-200: our bear instead of the American bulldog.
Is in stories Domestic automobile models deserve special attention. In particular, this includes the first Soviet diesel truck, the YaAZ-200, with a bear figurine on the hood.
It was this vehicle that became a kind of progenitor of the large-capacity trucks MAZ and KrAZ.
In March 1941, the decision was made to mass-produce the first Soviet diesel-powered truck at the Yaroslavl Automobile Plant for heavy trucks and tracked tractors. Today, it is the Yaroslavl Motor Plant (YaMZ), which produces diesel engines and manual transmissions. Until the 1960s, it carried out the complete assembly of not only trucks but also trolleybuses.
The YaAZ design school became a sort of alma mater for the production of MAZ trucks, and later KrAZ trucks. Serial production of engines for the YaAZ-200 began in 1947. The delay was due to the Great Patriotic War. The first YaAZ-200 prototype was presented personally to Joseph Stalin in 1945. In 1946, exactly 80 years ago, the truck successfully passed testing.
The engine was copied from the American two-stroke, four-cylinder GM 4-71 Diesel 2-cycle diesel engine from Detroit Diesel. As the design progressed, the vehicle itself began to take on features of the American Diamond and Mack. With a curb weight of 6,500 kg, the vehicle could carry up to seven tons of cargo.
The Soviet-made 4654 cc engine was designated the YaAZ-204A. It produced 110 hp and provided a top speed of 60 km/h. The five-speed manual transmission featured synchronizers on the top four gears, a first in the USSR. The YaAZ-200 was the first truck to feature a tachometer. A total of 1763 trucks were produced.
In 1950, the entire family of two-axle truck production was transferred to the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ), where they continued to be produced until 1966 without changing the index.
As for the bear figurine on the hood of the YaAZ-200, the story behind it is as follows. In 1944, the factory was unable to produce an all-metal cab. Therefore, the first YaAZ-200 models used cabs from Lend-Lease Mack trucks.
Later in the series, a wood-metal YaAZ/MAZ-212 cabin was installed. The trim design was also copied, right down to the animal figurine on the hood. However, the bulldog in the American version was replaced by a bear from the Yaroslavl coat of arms. On the MAZ-200, the bear was replaced by bison stamped on the hood sides. However, the earliest MAZ-200 show cars also featured a bison emblem on the hood.
On modern cars produced by Minsk Automobile Plant, the bison emblem has been preserved on the front part of the bumper.
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