To many today it may seem surprising, but foreign cars existed in the USSR, although they were, of course, a rarity. Those who possessed them belonged exclusively to the upper class. It is worth noting that even the possession of an ordinary car was considered prestigious, because for a long time the state relied on the development of industry, therefore it produced mainly heavy equipment. The passenger car industry developed exclusively according to the residual principle.
It is possible to conditionally distinguish three main stages - from the October Revolution to the Great Patriotic War, the post-war period and until the beginning of the 70s and, finally, the commissioning of an automobile plant in Tolyatti, which was a real breakthrough when having personal transport has become much easier. Naturally, the maximum number of cars, especially foreign-made ones, was concentrated on the territory of large cities. In addition to Moscow and Leningrad, these are also Minsk, Kyiv, the B altic capitals. Traffic on the roads of Moscow in the 1980s became relatively high and dense. The flow of domestic cars occasionally, but interrupted by foreign cars in the USSR. Moreover, the first of them appeared almost immediately after the October Revolution.
First foreign cars
Foreign cars in the USSR, and cars in general, were such a rarity that even Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote about the desire to get his own "iron horse" in his poems. The poet emphasized that when his dream came true, "the distances became close, and the kilometers became short." Classic even claimed that his day after that doubled.
Mayakovsky bought the car during one of his trips to Paris at the whim of Lily Brik.
It is believed that the first foreign car in the USSR belonged to Vladimir Lenin. It was a Rolls-Royce expropriated from the monarchs. Moreover, Lenin had more than one foreign car in the USSR. His first car of foreign production was the Turcat-Mery, which was previously driven by one of the daughters of Emperor Nicholas II. At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich got the car after Kerensky, since initially the royal garage was at the disposal of the Provisional Government. True, he used this car for a very short time. As they say, already in December 1917, an unknown person stole it right from the Smolny.
After Lenin drove a few more foreign cars. In the USSR, models and photos of these machines were well known to everyone. It was a Renault 40 CV with brake booster and a 7 year old Delaunay-Belleville.
In the 30s, opera singer AntoninaNezhdanova owned a Ford, Lyubov Orlova drove a Packard, Bolshoi ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya owned a Ford convertible.
What did the leaders ride on?
The next leader of the Soviet state after Lenin was Joseph Stalin. He traveled exclusively in foreign cars, preferring the American Packard Twin Six to European models. Later he moved to an armored car that Roosevelt gave him.
However, he did not really like the idea of driving a foreign-made car, so the Stalin plant was given the task: to design its own Packard.
Nikita Khrushchev, who cracked down on Stalin's personality cult, did not stray far from his predecessor in his passion for cars. He mainly used a Cadillac with a cabriolet-type body. It is noteworthy that during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler moved in this car at his headquarters near Vinnitsa.
Naturally, Khrushchev publicly tried not to appear on the Cadillac. For official events and ceremonial demonstration filming, he used exclusively domestic ZIS. The foreign car was his personal acquisition. Contemporaries claim that the American auto industry generally made a strong impression on him. It is no coincidence that since then the Soviet Chaikas and ZILs have been so reminiscent of Cadillacs and Lincolns. In addition, Khrushchev himself liked to buy foreign cars. At the same time, he himself did not use them, but passed them on to those who were especially close as an encouragement or to those whowho needed them. For example, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud worked at a Bolshevik nursing home, and a Mercedes 300 SL model worked at the Leningrad Research Institute of Fuel Equipment. It is worth recognizing that he did not forget about the closest, his family. He presented his son Sergei with the first Fiat on Soviet soil, and his daughter Rada drove a Renault Florida car.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a big fan of foreign cars. His first foreign car was a Buick 90 Limited from the US, which he used back in the late 1930s.
Among the cars he used were exclusively foreign-made cars of all makes and calibers. In almost two decades that he was in power in the country, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce, Nissan, Mercedes visited the party garage. And he never bought these cars. They were given to him. Among the generous world leaders was the American President, the Queen of Great Britain, the Chancellor of Germany, the Japanese Prime Minister.
It is known that Brezhnev at the same time liked to drive fast. And before the state of his he alth deteriorated significantly, he often drove himself. Eyewitnesses claim that with his behavior, he horrified the assistants who were supposed to ensure his safety. In addition, he baffled a large retinue.
The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, also used foreign cars. But at that time the country was already in full swingperestroika announced by him. And a foreign-made car was no longer surprising.
Post-war period
Judging by the photo, there were much more foreign cars in the USSR. The Red Army at that time received a huge amount of foreign military equipment. She acted under Lend-Lease from the Allies. There were especially many trophies at the final stage of the confrontation with the Nazis.
This not only pleased individuals, but also contributed to the development of the entire industry in the Soviet Union. Opel contributed to the development of Moskvich, and the Ural motorcycle became an almost exact copy of BMW.
The real breakthrough happened in the 50s, when the Soviet auto industry began to actively copy the decisions of the engineers of the allied countries.
Of course, German trophies ended up mainly in the hands of high-ranking officials and celebrities. At the same time, there is no reliable information about which cars and to whom they belonged at that time.
Who got foreign cars?
In the 1960s in the USSR, foreign cars were mainly assigned to embassies. Mostly capitalist countries. That is why foreign cars in the USSR often had diplomatic plates.
Many foreign-made machines were also in the central office of the CPSU. It is well known that foreign cars were a frequent gift from foreign delegations to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. Moreover, these were exclusively progressive models for those years.
As the photos confirm, foreign cars in the USSR in the 1960s withforeign numbers moved mainly in Moscow. Driving such a car for 101 kilometers was not easy at all.
In 1965, the first cosmonaut of the Earth Yuri Gagarin became the owner of a foreign car. This happened after he visited the French company MATRA, which, in addition to the production of space and rocket equipment, also produced cars. It is said that Gagarin was captivated by the Matra-Bonnet Jet VS with a fiberglass body. It was this blue model that he soon received in Moscow as a gift from the French government. True, he rarely used foreign equipment, preferring to travel on the domestic "Volga".
The situation in the 70s
In this decade, the situation began to change dramatically. The main difference from the previous period was that foreign cars in the USSR in the 70s became easily accessible to popular actors, directors and other celebrities of all stripes. They already drove exclusively with Soviet license plates.
One of the first to change foreign-made cars like gloves was Vladimir Vysotsky. In less than ten years, he changed five foreign cars in a row. It is possible that there were more of them. Judging by the photos of foreign cars in the USSR in the 70s, the poet and actor was a fan of Mercedes. He had a blue Mercedes-Benz S-class sedan and a brown coupe. He also traveled by BMW and Ford.
Repair and maintenance
The situation with the maintenance and repair of cars in the Soviet Union was not easy. Problemsexisted even with domestic cars. A personal acquaintance with a mechanic was considered a major and enviable success.
Most often, foreign cars were repaired in the garage when managing the affairs of the diplomatic corps. Here were the most competent specialists. Embassy cars, as a rule, were serviced at the consulates themselves, the large ones even had their own stations and auto repair shops. If a foreign car was in the hands of a mere mortal, he had to get out on his own. Official dealerships did not exist, although single services for foreign cars still existed in large cities.
Owners of the foreign auto industry also had problems of a different nature. For example, in the USSR there was no high-octane gasoline. Because of this, the engines on foreign-made cars constantly overheated and detonated. By the mid-70s, a special office even appeared in the Medvedkovo region, which, according to a special document, could sell a ton of high-grade gasoline.
The gas station at Kropotkinskaya was famous. There never existed queues, the government fleet refueled there. Before it appeared, private traders constantly had to invent all kinds of bypass technologies.
How to get a foreign car?
Obtaining a foreign car in the USSR in the 80s, and even earlier, was not an easy task. In the history of the Soviet Union, there are isolated cases when such machines ended up in the hands of mere mortals.
One of the rare examples is Alexander Vershinsky. This is a representative of the intelligentsia,renowned oceanographer. At the same time, despite numerous merits, he could not stand in line for a new car. The only opportunity to get your own vehicle was a separate queue for decommissioned equipment. Here they could provide used cars of ministries and car fleets, taxis. At the same time, they often ended up in a terrible state, for example, without headlights, interior or windows. But the queue for them still existed, and quite impressive.
When the cherished day came, a document was handed out, which had to be used within three to five days, choosing from a limited range offered.
Rarely, but it happened when foreign cars turned out to be next to shabby "Volga" and "Moskvich". A lot of effort and time had to be invested in the repair of such machines.
Vershinsky privately obtained used foreign cars in this way. He restored them using acquaintances, improvised materials and golden hands. Among the cars he owned were a Dodge, a Chevrolet, a Datsun.
Bulk Import
The situation with foreign cars in the USSR in the 80s changed dramatically. In 1985, with the beginning of perestroika, mass imports of foreign-made used cars were launched. There were also new copies, but rarely and only on order.
Mostly, the countries of the former socialist bloc acted as suppliers. At that time, the Skoda was considered the most desirable, there were also many Trabante fromGDR and Yugoslav Zastava, although they were quoted much lower. The sailors could bring a right-hand drive "Japanese".
In the early 90s, a real boom in the foreign car industry began in the country. BMWs, Mercedes, Fords and Volkswagens were brought from Europe. This business was highly profitable, but unsafe. Often the car on the road could be taken away by bandits. At the opposite end of the country, Japanese right-hand drive vehicles were massively imported. This method was much safer, since the suppliers acted officially, and the cars for sale were transported on ships, ferries and barges.
In the service of the law
Contrary to popular belief, there were not only domestically produced cars in the police service, as shown in most films. The first foreign cars in the traffic police in the USSR appeared immediately after the Great Patriotic War. True, the structure itself at that time was called differently - ORUD (Department for the regulation of traffic).
The equipment received under Lend-Lease was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs at that time. However, the situation on the roads still remained unstable. There were many violators, and there were always not enough cars and employees.
The situation in the traffic police changed radically in the late 60s. Significant is the appearance in the leadership of Valery Lukyanov, who was appointed head of the Main Directorate of the All-Union Traffic Police under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was under him that subdivisions of the patrol service were created, means of regulating the roadmovement, imported equipment was purchased.
In the capital's traffic police, foreign cars began to appear in the early 70s. In particular, these were Mercedes and Tatra cars.
The next batch of police cars arrived in 1976. These were already more powerful and reliable "Mercedes" models W116. They turned out to be much better suited for the role of an escort vehicle. This time, foreign cars were received not only by the capital's law enforcement agencies. One was handed over to Kyiv and Leningrad.
In the future, the flow of foreign car industry to the traffic police began to occur on a regular basis. The Mercedes was followed by a batch of BMWs. You can even see one of them in the legendary Soviet detective series "Experts are investigating."
From the beginning of the 80s, the supply of foreign equipment for the needs of the police became regular.
Trucks
The case with trucks in the USSR was especially. Foreign cars in this segment were required urgently. In 1924, our own production was started, but it could not meet the ever-increasing demand.
Already in the 1920s, the Soviet Union began the massive acquisition of trucks abroad. At that time, ambulance services drove Mercedes, and postmen traveled in French Amilcars. Before the start of the production of ZIS buses, British Leyland cruised Moscow.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the USSR received a particularly large number of foreign trucks - about four thousand. For example, American six-ton Moreland were purchased for the needs of the army.
