Packard Forum Index » ZIS, ZIL, and other Packard Cousins!

Guscha:

Tell us about your new Tchaika. What kind of engine and trans does it have??? Did they build any Russian Packards with Air conditioning????

MOST of all thanks for the translation of the word "Tchaika" as meaning seagull. I often wondered about that. Anyone have a phoneticaly correct translation to english for "Tchaika"????? I'm guessing the "T" is silent??? I'd like to know how to pronounce Tchaika.

My favorite Tschaika (I prefer that spelling if it is correct) is the pic that Owen Dyneto posted on 7/28/08 6:22:36 in the "Zis 110" thread of a car in Washington DC in 1969. Altho i would prefer it as a sedan or convertible and NOT a limo.
It's a beautiful car that rivals the Caribbean in style and beauty.

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!

Who made the engine in your Tschaika??? Some pics of engine would be appreciated.

This car looks to be part '55-'56 Packard & '58-'81 Checker. It looks quite Utilitarian. I remember seeing them used in alot of movies whenever they needed to show the Soviet side of the world. I remember one in the chase scenes of "White Nights" & "Firefox" from the '80s. I watched these movies when I was a child and remembered how much these cars intrigued me. I wondered how much Soviet cars looked different than anything American cars. However these Tschaika's looked very much like cars I'd seen at car shows with my father.

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Black one does look kinda dignified. Don't remember the details of a Checker but white back end looks like a combination of mid 50's Stude, Packard, and Pontiac--not too terrible.

I also thought the '55 Mercury & '56 Packard Could have been morphed together to make the Tchaika. What do you think?

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Front end = 1956 Packard

Rear end = 1957 Buick

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I'd like to some pics of the Chaika V8. Does the Zil-111 have a V8 too???

I'd like to have a Russian license plate. One with many Russian alphabet on it. I will go see if there is one on eBay.