In the USSR, to buy a car one had not only save money for the whole life and but also had to wait for his turn for no less than 8 years… But Russian men are never going to surrender. That’s why they made cars with their own hands. Here are the pictures of such handmade works of art found and exhibited by Ilya Sorokin.
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Cheetah 1966-1968
The series of similar cars were built from the parts of the ZAZ-966 and ZAZ-968.
KD 1963-1969
This is the first home-made car built by Soviet do-it-himselfers in series. The engine, transmission and suspension are taken from the ZAZ-965A. In total, only 6 cars were built.
Ant 1965
The engine is taken from the motorcycle Jawa-350, the main transmission and both suspensions – from the sidecar C3A.
Gran Turismo 1969
This car was made by Scherbinin brothers and is based on the “Volga” GAZ-21.
Proton 1985
An electric car with the engine of a loader and the batteries of heavy equipment.
Sport-1500 1977
The parts are taken from the VAZ-2103.
Buggy Solo 1980
One of the projects of Scherbinin brothers who by the way were real maniacs of the automobile industry at that time.
Star 1972
The engine of the motorcycle “Ural”. The parts are taken from the sidecar S3D.
The Scherbinins’ “Satan” 1980
While working on this project the brothers were joined by another couple of extremely enthusiastic men, Algebraistov brothers.
The parts of the body are made of fiberglass.
Dwarf 1970
The engine is taken from the Jawa-350, the parts – from the sidecar S3D.
Pangolina 1983
This is probably the most famous home-made car. The engine and parts are taken from the Zhiguli VAZ-2101.
Yuna 1982
Yuri Algebraistov, the creator of this car, constantly upgrades it. Even today it is fully in working order and excellent condition. The engine of the BMW can be found under its hood. In fact, it is the only Soviet home-made car that managed to live till nowadays.
FOX 2011
This is the modern attempt of Shustov Cars to make a “cool” automobile. These are not enthusiasts like the Scherbinins but professional designers. And this is sad because some Russian designers think for some reason that the more lines they’ll draw on paper, the better. Sometimes, this is not so at all.
Trud (“labor”) 1964
This car has a home-made three-cylinder engine.
A very interesting detail. A frying pan instead of the wheel.
Teremok 1974
A trailer for travelling.
That’s how it should have looked according to the author’s plan.
Elbrus TC-1 1972
Built on the basis of the GAZ-21, it was assembled at the car repair plant and was intended for its chief engineer.
Centaur 1981
A minibus of high cross-country ability.
Komar (“mosquito”) 1990
“A multifunctional car built by V. Komar and intended for the use in the conditions of Russian reality” is written on the plate near the car.
Katam 1966
Looks more like a boat with wheels. The wooden frame, water-proof veneer. The engine is taken from the Jawa-350. Equipped with devices necessary for navigation.
via antonio-j
Cool! Making cars on your own were quite popular even in our soviet republic, I saw one about a week ago. A local man is still driving with it. It´s based on parts of AZLK and LADA and made of fiberglass. Gotta love it!
Amazing to see see Soviet era cars with windscreen wipers intact!
The “Pangolina” was very probably inspired by Maserati Khamsin.
all looks terribly ulgy
Man, these are the coolest ZAZ I’ve ever seen!
Can not prove it but some sources state that in the Soviet era it was allowed to make DIY cars but with some limitations like the engine volume up to 1.0 L and that is why the most of those cars have ZAZ engines
This is so cool! I would love to see this some day. Several years ago I visited the Bubble Car museum in America and some of these Russian cars would be right at home. The spaceship-looking car with the frying pan is really neat, I wish I could have one like that! Except I want a real steering wheel.
It’s like rubbish art.
What a lie… you can easily buy car (of course if you normal worker, for example scientist) and you didnt have to wait 8 years.
Dunno about that. Back in the old times, soviet in Lithuania there where a waiting time around 8 years to get the car.
But yea, long time ago
I love the KD series, i’d like to own a renovated version of one of those.
ER should stop lying. Anyone could buy a car, they weren’t expensive at all. But you did have to sit in a waiting list, however the waiting was not long and definitely not 8 years LOL
I had thought cars were rare too – but from a history book ” Cars for Comrades” Seigelbaum
“‘In 1963, there were some seventy thousand individually owned cars in Moscow and all of eight STOs [service stations, distinct from simple petrol stations]; by 1980, the number of service stations had increased to thirteen, but the number of cars had risen to an estimated 250,000’.”