In the collection of the UMMC Automobile Equipment Museum a unique exhibit appeared: the first Soviet high-class serial passenger car ZIS-101. Well-restored copies of this machine are units.
The first attempt to create a representative car in the USSR is the L-1, developed at the Krasny Putilovets plant in Leningrad in 1933 on the basis of Buick 32-90 (also presented in the collection of the UMMC Automobile Technology Museum), then all documentation was transferred to Moscow, the plant Stalin's name, where the machine was modernized. As a result, ZIS-101 received a new body with rounded forms, in the style of the then fashionable "streamline". Body drawings, as well as punching equipment for its production, were ordered by the body atelier Budd in the USA. Presses for sheet punching were made in the same place.
April 29, 1936, the first two pre-production cars were presented to the leadership of the USSR in the Kremlin. The responsibility was so high that before that in March the chassis, still without a body, in disgusting weather, was experienced personally by the plant's director Ivan Likhachev, after making a trip 70 km to Podolsk and back. During the inspection AND. Stalin made some comments on the details of the car and on May 1 the second show of the cars with corrections took place, and in June - a test run on the route Moscow-Leningrad-Kiev-Moscow length of 2830 km. The car was ready for batch production.
"ZIS-101 is a truly unique and iconic machine for the domestic automotive industry. About this exhibit can be told for hours, starting from the history of its creation, interior, and ending with the features of operation. For example, for the efficient operation of the brakes of almost three-ton machines, their mechanical drive was supplemented with a vacuum amplifier. At the same time, the design had a curious drawback: the left wheels "grasped" stronger than the right. With severe braking, the driver had to take this feature into account so that the car would not be brought in, "said Stanislav Churkin, director of the UMMC Automotive Technology Museum.
Most of the cars were painted in a strict "bureaucratic" black color. However, there were other varieties of color: blue, white, cream, gray, cherry, green. At least one car was painted in color, which would now be called a silver-blue metallic: for this, aluminum powder was added to the blue enamel. For that time, this color was really unique. The car salon corresponded to its status. As well as it is necessary to cars of such class it was equipped with a partition between a forward row of seats and passenger salon, an additional row of folding seats, a support for feet, independent illumination, hand-rail on a partition of salon, handles at a back pillar of a body, roll шторками on windows.
Also there was a modification of ZIS-101L, which had an internal phone for communication with the driver. The upholstery of the passenger compartment used expensive cloth, and the front row of seats and the front door panels were covered with black or brown leather. ZIS-101 became the first Soviet passenger car with a radio receiver, whose antenna was installed in the roof of the car. With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, in most of the cars, the radio receivers were dismantled, since any means of communication were considered a potential espionage tool.
The 1 st Automobile Plant. Stalin, like any other enterprise of the USSR, has never before produced mass-produced such complex cars. The car's body had a wooden frame made of hundreds of details, which used oak, larch, pine, ash, beech, birch. Designed by his company Budd was guided by the standards of the time in the production of high-end cars - they were usually assembled by hand with a careful fit of every detail. But ZIS-101 was to assemble on the assembly line, demonstrating the achievements of the Soviet automotive industry. To build an assembly of such a complex machine was an extremely difficult task. In 1936, only 11 vehicles were assembled for bypass technology, and the first ZIS-101 conveyor assembly was assembled on January 18, 1937. The conveyor itself was created from scratch. Its length was 210 meters, which theoretically allowed to assemble simultaneously 30-35 cars. In practice, it was possible to reach a figure of 18 cars per day, but it, considering the complexity of the machine and the lack of such experience among the people who gathered it, can be considered impressive.
Not all units and units of the car had the proper quality. A high percentage of rejects were screened out at the factory, however, even the assembled cars caused complaints from drivers.
In many respects, therefore, the top leadership of the USSR did not transfer to the Soviet limousine. The garage of special purpose considered its technical characteristics as "insufficient". The first domestic cars of the highest class were delivered to the garages of the People's Commissariats, the regional party committees, the embassy. Used ZIS-101 and as a taxi. From 1936 to 1941, 8,752 vehicles of all modifications were produced.
PHOTO: The Museum of UMMC.