Exhibition “Struggle for speed”

The Special Purpose Garage Museum presents an exhibition, telling about the history of Soviet motor sports.

It is generally accepted that in the USSR cars were very simple, utilitarian and slow-moving. But in fact, this is far from the case: the unique exhibition “Struggle for speed”, dedicated to the history of record and racing cars, will prove the opposite.

The exhibition presents 15 rare racing cars that have become the pride of motorsport in the Land of the Soviets – the first Russian and Soviet cars designed specifically for racing and speed records. Most of them have a difficult history of creation and a difficult path to success.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were very few cars in Russia, but the first races were already held, but not on autodromes, but on ordinary roads. Race cars were often based on production models.

The Revolution, the Civil War, the formation and development of the young Land of the Soviets – a situation where there was no time for motorsport. But the love of speed did not go away, and amateurs made racing cars. In the late 1930s, several enthusiasts assembled their own versions of racing cars on the outdated GAZ-A chassis.

The basis of the exposition in the GON Museum is 15 record and racing cars, which were considered lost, but were brought back to life by search engines-historians and master restorers of the Shamansky workshop. Almost everyone can even now go to the track.

The most interesting exhibit is the Pobeda-Sport car. The design of his own, Soviet car for setting speed records was entrusted to aviation engineer A. A. Smolin. Under his leadership, the new Soviet car M20 Pobeda underwent a number of transformations. In total, five cars were built, which set new all-Union speed records when driving long distances.

Here the Zvezda sparkles – the first car in the USSR built specifically for sports. The machine was constantly improved, prototypes Zvezda -2, 3, 3M, M-NAMI, 5, 6 were created, repeatedly setting all-Union and world records in different classes.

Immediately after the war, a Formula 2 racing car was developed at a joint Soviet-German enterprise. The Sokol-650 model made its first trips in 1952. Vasily Stalin himself followed the development of the machine. Two completely finished cars were delivered to Moscow to participate in the race. But local mechanics were unable to service such complex equipment, and Sokol-650 did not show itself on the track. But already in 1958, at the Tallinn Experimental Automobile Repair Plant, they began to build their Estonia racing cars with open wheels from domestic components. Each subsequent model became better than the previous one, increased reliability, improved aerodynamics, increased power and maximum speed of cars of this model.

Interestingly, the Kharkiv racing car is the most productive Soviet racing car: 29 speed records! The last record of 1963 remained unconquered – 286 kilometers per hour! Even then, not everyone had seat belts. “There were people who were not afraid to ride them, on ordinary tires, because there was nowhere to get a special sports one. Instead of sports helmets – tank helmets. But these people were not afraid of anything, there were no safety devices in these cars. They raced, set records, crashed. They were collected again, glued together – both cars and people. They raced again,” said Ilya Sorokin, curator of the exhibition.

“Tartu”, “Estonia”, “Zvezda”, “Kharkiv”, “Kyiv-Sport” … Now these names are known only to a narrow circle of specialists and motorsport historians. But once these names sounded loud and proud, and the fireballs, sparkling with polished chrome, powerfully broke off from the start, gaining sports glory for the Motherland.

Surprisingly, some of the records of that time, set by Soviet athletes, have not been beaten to this day. “We are pleased that the exhibition of rare racing cars of the Soviet era is opening in our museum, where authentic and unique samples of domestic and world automotive industry are presented. Visitors will be able not only to feel the spirit of the historical era, but also to get acquainted with the fate of the designers and athletes of racing cars, see the rarest documents and photographs,” said Yulia Kuklina, General Director of the Special Purpose Garage Museum of the FSO of Russia.

Guests of the exhibition will also be able to learn about a record-breaking racing car powered by a MiG fighter, a fantastic, ahead of time pre-war bulletproof bus and truck project, as well as see more than 500 rare items representing the history of Soviet racing motorsport, which developed according to its own laws – in the conditions of an iron curtain and away from foreign racing tracks.

Exhibition period: August 13 – October 9, 2022

Mikhail Kovalyov.

Author’s photo