ZIM is gaining speed slowly and smoothly. As befitting a car of this class. ZIM is gaining speed slowly and smoothly. As befitting a car of this class. In today's Moscow, he is uncomfortable. And not only because there is little useless vanity and a rough crush. He, unlike the capital, did not lose his face, not overgrown with tasteless decorations. The best time to travel to ZIM is early Saturday morning. Then you can linger where little has changed in six decades, and calmly remember how it was.
This is the first Gazov car with a deer on the emblem and the last one in whose name the name of Molotov was encrypted. The abbreviation ZIM, in contrast to the understandable, albeit not very liked by the "leader of all peoples" name "Victory", sounded like a nickname. By the way, the name Molotov is also a party pseudonym. Exactly when the ZIM was being prepared for production, Molotov was removed from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife was generally sent to the camp. But Molotov still remained on the Presidium of the Central Committee, and the plant and the new car did not lose the letter M. Such are the lessons of linguistics.
To the left of the steering wheel is a huge hand brake lever. Here you can’t forget about him: a car with a fluid coupling can roll, even if the gear is engaged! To the left of the steering wheel is a huge hand brake lever. Here you can’t forget about him: a car with a fluid coupling can roll, even if the gear is engaged!
The model, which in the Soviet automobile hierarchy took the place between Pobeda and ZIS-110, began to be designed in 1948 under the leadership of chief designer A. Lipgart. Everything about everything took less than two and a half years. The large sedan was based on serial units and Victory units, and the engine (inline six) was not an exact, but still a copy of the Dodge-D5 engine and was produced in Gorky since 1940. For a seven-seat passenger car, it was forced to 90 hp quite decent at that time.
The main problem was the body. According to the canons of that time, a car with a base of 3200 mm was supposed to be frame. It was said that Lipgart in the ministry was strongly advised to simply copy the Buick. But creating a frame structure would lengthen the design and refinement process. Yes, and 90 hp For such a heavy car, it was clearly not enough. Lipgart and the leading designer of the GAZ-12 Yushmanov ventured to leave the supporting structure - and eventually won. The machine weighing only 1840 kg had decent dynamics.
On November 7, 1948, a third prototype drove out for a holiday demonstration in Gorky. And three months later, on February 15, 1949, ZIM was shown to the country's leadership. Serial production began in 1950. Lipgart received the fifth Stalin Prize for GAZ-12 and was immediately sent to the soft link to the Urals - the chief designer of the truck factory in Miass. The engineer remembered the failure with the early version of Victory, which, like almost everything at that time, was created in a crazy rush. Times were far from vegetarian.
TO THE MINISTRY - AND HOME
ZIM is an almost perfect training car. You can throw the clutch, rarely change gears, and use the first one only on steep climbs and in especially difficult conditions. The fluid coupling in the transmission ensures a smooth start and movement. The device, simpler than the torque converter, eliminated the rigid connection between the engine and clutch, so the car did not stall during sharp pedal operation. In the USA, however, full-fledged automatic machines were already in fashion, but the cheapest modifications with manual gearboxes were also often equipped with fluid couplings. Well, for the USSR, such a design was a breakthrough at all.
A set of instruments in ZIM is standard for those years. A set of instruments in ZIM is standard for those years.
So even a not very experienced driver (they didn’t put such people on ZIMs) didn’t disturb him with jerks of the leader reflecting on the fate of the country and the people. Of course, in the first place the cars fell to officials, but GAZ-12 was also sold to private owners - for the fabulous 40, 000 rubles at that time. The school teacher received about 900 rubles, a young, just graduated research assistant, about 1100.
Nevertheless, ZIMs were bought for personal use - by prominent scientists, literary and art workers in positions and ranks, which, nevertheless, were not supposed to be a personal car from the state. In one of the interviews, the famous playwright and screenwriter, one of the main authors of the Moscow Sovremennik Viktor Rozov, mentioned his ZIM. Most often, personal GAZ-12s were driven by hired drivers. The role of the executive sedan in Soviet cinema of the 1950s is characteristic. In the film “Different Fates”, a professor and a famous composer are transported to ZIM; in the “Ordinary Man”, the famous singer owns the car, and the hired driver manages it. In this picture, an elegant lady, a messenger of easy democratization of the second half of the 1950s, also drives.
Despite the fact that the driver’s sofa doesn’t move, almost any driver will comfortably sit on it, having adapted himself. Perhaps only very very high will be crowded. But behind - a small apartment! Huge and soft, like a grandmother's feather bed, a sofa plus a pair of folding strap-on seats. If you remove them, the distance between the sofas is simply huge. One of the owners of ZIM told me that he was taking a baby stroller in the cabin without dismantling.
But it came much later. At first, serious men in gray hats or astrakhan pies sat in the GAZ-12. They had something to think about, sitting on a spacious sofa. There are no fewer enemies around, and the international situation is traditionally difficult. In August 1949, the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. In response, US President Truman in January 1950 ordered the creation of hydrogen. The leadership of the USSR seriously planned how to protect at least the capital from nuclear bombing. It seemed to many: the start of a world war was a matter of months. And the one that was unleashed in Korea is its prologue.
The course of the long-base ZIM is extremely soft, soothing. Even if you miss an obstacle, you will not particularly disturb the passenger. But brakes without an amplifier require prudence and attention. The only thing designers could please in this system was a pair of working brake cylinders in front. By the way, for the first time in a Soviet car. But by modern standards, the slowdown of the ZIM is sluggish, the car behaves like a groundhog, not wanting to get out of hibernation. Acceleration is also far from modern, but such is the price for smoothing jerkily fluid coupling. It is not easy at first to adapt to the turning radius of a machine more than 5.5 m long and also with more than three-meter base. It is necessary to try so that from the first time, quietly rumbling the lower-valve “six”, correctly and accurately deliver the ZIM to the impressive entrance between the majestic columns. It is near such entrances that the car looks the most harmonious. The country, just five years ago emerging from a devastating war, was proud of new factories, scientific institutes, high-rises - and such a car.
“AND YOU ARE GOING OUT IN THE WINTER!”
GAZ-12 was produced in modest quantities - just over two thousand a year. But ordinary mortals, not endowed with either power or ranks, could join the beautiful in a winter taxi. The price of the trip, however, was one and a half times higher than in the "Victory", but in the big car as many as six passengers were seated. And if you find a good-natured driver and make room, then more.
Especially many ZIMs appeared in a taxi after 1956 (here, by the way, this year’s car), when Nikita Sergeyevich, who was not the last of our leaders to start the struggle with privileges, took ZIMA from officials.
Luxurious Soviet sedans, created during the era of “anti-popular conspiracies” and preparations for war, survived on the assembly line to the Twentieth Congress, the World Festival of Youth and Students held in Moscow, the birth of films and performances unprecedented by courage, and even to the famous American exhibition in Sokolniki. Of course, in 1959, when Soviet people were able to live to see the achievements of the overseas automobile industry, ZIM against the background of overseas “cruisers” with their aerospace design and powerful motors looked like a grandfather in an unfashionable, smelling mothballs suit. But Soviet industry has already produced ZIL-111, and the "Seagull" GAZ-13 is about to appear …
Small strapon seats were most often used in taxis. Small strapon seats were most often used in taxis.
But outdated, it seems, ZIM was waiting for a new, unusual life. Not yet becoming an oldtimer, he remained prestigious. Despite the fact that with the beginning of the Zhiguli era it became harder to drive a GAZ-12, cars in the secondary market were by no means cheap and they were still looked at with respect. And on their owners - with different feelings. Characteristic is the role of GAZ-12 in the popular 1970s series “Experts Conduct Investigation”. The leader of a gang of robbers scolds the youngest and most impudent accomplice for ostentatious luxury: “And you are traveling to the WINTER! You can’t ride a Zhiguli like everyone else?” Over the past four decades, ZIMs have become even more prestigious and more expensive. It’s not easy to flow into a dense Moscow stream even on a day off. True, many drivers patiently miss. Then they overtake, but look at the leisurely black sedan with reverence, as at a retired, but still brave general or elderly honored artist …
