Exhibition of vintage cars “Parade” Victory “opened in Moscow

On the eve of the celebration of the 78th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Special Purpose Garage Museum opened an exhibition of retro cars called the Victory Parade.

Within a month, citizens and guests of the capital will be able to see 12 cars of the GAZ M-20 Pobeda family at the Garage Museum at VDNH, as well as learn the history of the creation and development of this model. They are united by a common history, but each has its own destiny. Unique cars were restored thanks to the painstaking work of search engines, historians and restorers.

A beautiful domestic car is not only a symbol of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, but also the personification of an entire era. Back in December 1941, the Gorky Automobile Plant received a government order to carry out design work to create a new car. On the new passenger car GAZ M-20 Pobeda, they began to work closely the very next day after the defeat of the Germans near Stalingrad in February 1943.

In the summer of 1943, as a result of carpet bombing, the Gorky Automobile Plant was seriously damaged, more than fifty buildings were destroyed, but it continued to produce military products. Work on the new car did not stop either, it was decided to attract the best designers, engineers, artists from all over the country.

“Victory” became the first mass-produced passenger car in the USSR, and also a symbol of the post-war revival of the country. This car has long become a cult, and it’s not even that the design and design were revolutionary for our country. The history of the creation and production of a car series is full of unexpected twists and turns. The head of state personally gave the car a “start in life”. There is a legend that they wanted to call the new car “Motherland”. But when Stalin was shown a sample of a future production car, he asked: “And how much are we going to sell our Motherland?” Fearing the wrath of the great leader, he was quickly informed of the second version of the name, which was approved. In fact, this is just a beautiful myth, since from the very beginning of the design of the future car it was already called “Victory”, in honor of the future Victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. And the name “Rodina” was planned to be given to one of the future models, the M-21, which never appeared.

“This is the first mass-produced post-war car. And, moreover, it is the first new model in the world, mastered after the end of the Second World War. That is, Western European companies could not afford to launch new models until the end of the forties,” said Ivan Paderin, organizer of the exhibition.

The creator of “Victory” is the outstanding Soviet car designer Andrey Lipgart. In 1933-1951 he worked as the chief designer of the Gorky Automobile Plant. The daughter of Andrey Lipgart recalled the time when active work was underway on Pobeda at the opening of the exhibition: “Dad came home very often on Pobeda. While he was having dinner, he allowed his chauffeur Andrei Petrovich to take me, my girlfriends, for a ride. And here we are, like herring in a barrel, stuffed into the car. It was just a delight,” said Irina Lipgart.

In general, there were many victories in Lipgart’s career: under his leadership and with direct participation, 67 experimental models of cars and other equipment were developed and built, of which 27 went into production. An unprecedented result in world history! The designer’s authority was regularly awarded. For example, he won the Stalin Prize five times, and the first two awards he received for the creation of tanks and armored vehicles, and the last prize he received precisely for “Victory”.

By the way, the car did not yet have a corporate logo, as well as an official name – on the hoods of the first samples they simply wrote “Molotov Automobile Plant” with paint. Both factory workers and residents of the city immediately liked the model very much: a fantastic streamlined teardrop shape gave the car a modern dynamic look, all the details emphasized the unity of style. And in technical terms, the model was simply a masterpiece: a spacious (by the standards of that time) comfortable interior, soft sofas upholstered in leather, and even a trunk! The car was not only a symbol of the country’s victory in the Great Patriotic War, but also became a grandiose breakthrough for the domestic auto industry. For the first time in the history of the USSR, the car became available for purchase, and for the first time the Soviet sedan became popular in many European countries.

I’m going to the exhibition. The machines presented here are united by a common history, but each has its own destiny. Here is an interesting coffee-colored car – the only matte, without shine, bodywork. “It was probably found after 15 years of searching. It differs from most of the presented exhibits. The car is in a completely preserved condition,” says the owner, exhibitor Georgy Dragulsky.

All other “Victory” shine, as if they had just rolled off the assembly line. They were painstakingly restored by master restorers. You can see various modifications of the car, for example, a convertible sedan from 1950. Instead of the usual roof – a cloth top. Today it is an attribute of luxury, and at that difficult time – the consequences of a shortage of metal in the country after the war.

“It was really a very tight deficit. And therefore, the government adopted a resolution to transfer, as far as possible, one third of the production of all “Pobedas” and also “Moskviches” to production with a tarpaulin top, ”explained Ivan Paderin.

The chronology of the Pobeda exposition includes the climactic dates of Russian history: from the defeat of the Germans near Stalingrad in February 1943, when the development of a passenger car for the post-war perspective was resumed at GAZ a day later, to the launch in the USSR in October 1957 of the first artificial satellite of the Earth when the release of the model came to an end. Over these fifteen years, Pobeda has become a witness and participant in grandiose changes in the country and in the world. The stands of the exhibition tell about the labor feat of car manufacturers during the Great Patriotic War, about the process of developing a civilian car, about the first private demonstrations of M-20 prototypes in the Kremlin, about mass production and improvement of the car, about creating its special modifications. The stand of the legendary racing team Torpedo-GAZ, which knew no equal on high-speed tracks in the 1950s, is also interesting.

Mikhail Kovalyov.

Author’s photo