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

OK folks, I gotta come out of the closet here... I have to say that IMO the Chaika was actually, in some respects, a better designed car than the Packard/Clipper ... the grille design the Stude looking tailights, the Mopar clone windshield, all were incredibly well executed! Who'da thunk it? ... let the flaming begin!

New I found something that got my attention at the first sight:
Look at this a prototype GAZ-13 with two headlights and a different grill.


hmm this grill resembels a 1957-58 Plymouth grill.. or
reminds me of this deadly vehicle...




but maybe Im just confusing two different things, but it would be interesting to know why did they abandon that consept?


Picture source:denisovets.narod.ru/models.html,http://www.plymouthcentral.com/

Roger (Randerson), now two very American looking cars parking in your threat.

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Hi

"...in the eye of the beholder"

That prototype GAZ-13 reminds me of a '58 Ambassador particularly in the execution of the headlights, hood and upper grille.

Soviets might have publicly decried "big decadent American Cars" but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Steve

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Oh, really?

Steve (58L8134), I know for sure that you have the hang of identifying and comparing cars and sometimes when people ask for help to identification you identify the car, the filling station in the background and the surrounding countryside at one sweep


This time I will try to hold your pace.
Perhaps good to know that the above shown face lift was made in 1961 (JFK, Bay of Pigs Invasion, iron curtain, first space flight, South Africa became a republic and left the Commonwealth, Antarctic Treaty System, Boeing CH-47 Chinook, Amnesty International and WWF have been founded, a girl later known as Lady Di was born and Ernest Hemingway died). In searching for a suitable pattern the talk is around the late fifties. The scene plays in CCCP, the location is a design department wether in Gorky (GAZ) or the Moscow Research Automobile Laboratory, known as NAMI, being a kind of Soviet central design studio. In those days it had been a Soviet tradition since decades to design by help of US-American patterns - in consequence of the technological gap, the unfreedom of thinking / doing / farting / being, the dependence structures, however, but not because of mental laziness or inability.

An American car with relation to Packard, built around the late fifties, equipped with V8 and double exhaust system, latest design, curved grille and bumper, panorama windshield, lettering on the hood, four eyes, ... well, the 1958 Studebaker Commander/President could be taken into consideration.

BTW Al (acolds), that would be your field of expertise!

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Roger, I think that you are a certified car nut! Me too.
Never mind that some of my pics push them but even almost hand built Soviet cars do not deserve perfect scores and do not stand comparison with US American engineering design, material quality and build quality. It doesn't hurt to dream and it is far from me to suddenly rouse somebody from slumber. Lucid dreaming could be a suitable answer to the problem. The better way would be to touch a Chaika and to drive it. After a short period of disillusion you probably would come to the viewpoint that Soviet cars are what we make of them. From an aesthetic point of view they are brittle beauties behind a curtain of mist, shadowy, always steeped in legends. What a wonderful coincidence that I prefer woman with slightly curved nose!
To uphold their reputation as part of Soviet-time pictures of otherness and secretiveness an owner of a Chaika from time to time should throw a few drops naturally cloudy water to the radiator. Puff is part of the trade.



[picture source unknown]

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Guscha, does a Tshaika have solid axles with leaf springs at rear ends?
Were Tshaikas sold to foreigners?

ilkkaluoma.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Unelma+-+Tshaika/

Guscha, haben Tshaikas Starachsen und Blattfedern hinten? Wurden sie von den Russkies exportiert? Schon mal danke im voraus. 8-]

Let's start with the issue of Russian selling efforts.

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The sales activities of Soviet motor vehicle industry haven't been confined to Western Europe. But to call Chaika's a mentionable sales hit would be blue-sky propaganda. At the highest estimate (free valuation) I think no more than a couple of dozen were sold.
I remember a newspaper article talking about Chaika sales representatives in Finland but to my knowledge it was related to a succeeding model, the GAZ-14. The below shown advertisement was published in a Finnish local newspaper.
Would love to know details of price policy, spare parts supply and their network of repair shops ...



Thanks for the link to a Finnish Chaika. That car is waiting in a secluded nook of the world, forlorn in silence.

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