Re: Russian Chaika [means seagull]

Posted by BH On 2008/10/5 10:52:09

Not to create controversy, but someone (who's not online) recently tried to convince me that the tooling for the 55th-56th cars was sold to Russia to build these cars. Sounds to me as if one myth begat another.

While there are clearly some trim pieces (inside and out) that could very well have come from the surplus bins after Packard's Detroit operations were shut down, there's a mixture of styling elements on the Chaika that point to other cars of that period.

As a side note, several years ago, I won a die-cast model of a Chaika on eBay. Upon receipt and inspection of the item, I was pleased to find the verbage on the bottom of the car was done in the Cyrillic alphabet - definitely made in the CCCP (USSR).

Guscha, while I don't really know much about these cars, I appreciate their close resemblance to Packards, and you certainly have enlightened us. I especially enjoy the images from around the world - many things that some of us might have never seen otherwise.

Keep up the good work!