By Alexey Dyakov and Fedor Eliseev
Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.
Part II finished the story about AGD passenger cars and buses, so now we move to sports cars in Part III. AGD was interested in different types of vehicles, so they manufactured certain post war Soviet sport racing cars. In the 1990s, it was a forgotten page in history; nobody had photos of the actual Soviet sports cars and most of them were destroyed after they had finished racing.
The first model race car created by AGD was the ZIL-112C, one of the most beautiful sports cars from that era. It reminded the makers of European sports cars because its design was inspired by the Ferrari 250. It was equipped with a V8 engine with 240 hp and a max speed about 260 – 270 km/h. Two cars were built, the first in 1962, the second a year later. These two cars had some differences though. For instance, the second car had different wheels and a roll bar behind the cockpit.
Also the engineers twice updated the engine to make it more powerful. They tried to go for a speed record but unfortunately didn’t achieve it. They reached a maximum speed of 236 km/h.
Two ZIL-112C took part in the All-Union Championship (an automobile race for all Soviet states) and showed good results. In the mid 1960s, ZIL’s sports car workshops were closed, but the cars continued to race. The 1970 season was the last one for them, after which they should have been scrapped and destroyed, but racings fans at the ZIL plant saved them and sold them to an old car club in Riga, Latvia.
One car was painted red, but it was restored and repainted white in 1989. Since that time this ZIL-112C became an exhibit in Riga’s Motor Museum. The other car was damaged in a crash on the race track and wasn’t restored. In 1993 it was sold to a private collection.
AGD only made one version – the Riga car in red with a safety roll bar behind the cockpit. The factory produced 10 models.
At the same time AGD built another racing car, the ZIS-112 based on the chassis of the luxurious ZIS-110. This car was inspired by the Buick LeSabre concept car designed by Harley Earl in 1951.
The ZIS-112 was produced in 1952. The main purpose of this sport car was to test components for future ZIS luxury cars. The body had a detachable roof and very interesting design. It was named Cyclops for its unusual front view with a central round light.
This car was very long and heavy, which is why the ZIS-112 didn’t achieve huge success in the USSR racing championships. However, the developers tested a lot of new equipment and components using this car. The engineers were constantly making changes to the design of the car. They upgraded the cooling system, and by 1956 had rebuilt the car with a short base. Unfortunately, a few years later the ZIS-112 was scrapped and demolished. Afterwards historians named long based version ZIS-112/1.
It was a difficult task for the AGD artisans from Kaliningrad to create its scale model because they couldn’t find images of the front and back of the car. Only in 2009 historians found some images of this car. As a result, the model had a simplified back end, but colleagues from Moscow found an actual driver of this car, who confirmed that the AGD model is very close to the original except for some small details.
AGD made 2 versions of the long based ZIS-112 – closed with a detachable hood and without the hood. The workshop made 10 units of closed cars and only few units open.
In the beginning of the 2000s, only one artisan, the founder, remained at AGD. At that time, he created models of cars from the Moscow factory, MZMA, also called Moskvich. AGD modeled the Moskvich-404 Sport, that was based on the modified chassis of the 401 model. The car was introduced in 1954, but few samples were built, some with different body styles.
The 404 had a race car body without doors and an experimental OHV engine rated at 58 hp. Later the car got an upgraded engine from the 407 model, equipped with 4 carburetors. The power went up to about 70 hp. In 1959 the Moskvich-404 Sport got a new 4 speed gearbox and some body changes. In the 1960s a new front spring suspension appeared.
The car was successful in racing. It achieved second place in the USSR Championship in 1954, third in 1955, and first place in 1957-58. Unfortunately in the mid 1960s, it was scrapped and demolished.
AGD made 2 versions – the early 1954 modification with roll bar and 1959 modification with roll bar and updated body. There were about 6 models total for these two variations.
Then the AGD returned to the other cars of ZIS/ZIL sport cars workshops and made the model of the ZIL-112-4 race car.
The real car was built in 1958 and based on the chassis of ZIL-111, the successor of 110 model. By this time Stalin’s name was deleted from the name of the plant and replaced by the surname of former director Lichachev, so ZIS became ZIL. It was an interesting part of Russian history when Stalin’s dictatorship finished and people felt rather free and enthusiastic. As to auto sport, young engineers and racers tried to create innovative sports cars to compete with each other. And of course, many of them had a dream to compete with the best drivers in the world in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Formula 1.
ZIL’s engineers made really innovative cars. ZIL-112-4 had a rather strong engine equipped with 4 carburetors with a body in plastic. This car was successful in different races inside the country. Driving this car, the famous Soviet racer Boris Kurbatov won the Аll-Union Championship in 1960.
AGD produced not more than 10 units of this model. The company is still interested in the sport cars theme, so we hope to see new exciting models in the future.
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