Looking for something a bit rustic and rugged? Flat-Black66 has found just the thing for you, in the form of a GAZ-69, the Eastern Bloc’s favorite military transport.
The GAZ-69 was built in Russia from 1953 -1972, and as the ARO (and other names) in Romania until 1975. If GAZ had just put on some Dinoc wood on its sides, and called it the Grand GAZ, they might have been able to keep making it for another twenty years.
Like Russian women. “Built strong, like tractor.”
“Strong like tractor. Smart like bull.”
I like it, ‘though I’m half-Russian, so…
Y’know, that second shot reminds me of the old “CC” vehicle parked with that Sub-genius “Bob Dobbs” thingy painted on the doors a few years ago!
It would fit perfectly!
“If GAZ had just put on some Ni-Doc wood on its sides, and called it the Grand GAZ, they might have been able to keep making it for another twenty years.”
Actually…I don’t think so. We tend to underestimate the “Kewel Factor” when judging long-lived cars and model runs.
This may have been as capable as a Willys Jeep (I doubt it, based on my limited Lada experience and with Chinese motorcycles) but there aren’t the fond long-ago memories or strong patriotic images.
Ask any owner of a pristine SJ Jeep, today, why he has it and likes it…ten’ll getcha twenty, he’s got a childhood memory of the car. Utilitarian box or not, it harkens back to a time when tailfins roamed the Earth and when the Wagoneer took the Cub Scouts to a fishing hole. Or took Dad to the worksite…maybe he could use the company Wagoneer and sneak home for lunch?
The few Americans who have memories of GAZs won’t remember them with fondness. So…it’ll be a curiosity; an asterick in the Curbside Classics Manual…and nothing more. Not it’s fault…but that’s the way it is.
Counter-argument: the Mercedes G-wagen
The Three-Pointed Star has its own cachet. The long-ago war years are forgotten in favor of the Benz as the transportation choice of the well-funded leisure class. Whereas we have images or memories, variously, of Russian troops on the move…to East Germany, Afghanistan, Soviet Georgia…take your pick.
I wasn’t thinking about any WW2 association. The G-wagen started out as the military Jeep equivalent from some far-away place, of which we don’t have any fond collective childhood memories in North America. Just like today’s featured GAZ. However, today the G-wagen is an upscale bling-mobile.
Russian equipment does have its own cachet here: People think of Russian stuff as being crudely designed but overbuilt like a tank. Syke and Jimbob’s comments at the very top of the comments bear this out. That’s the angle they would have needed to push to sell these.
Advertising is a bourgeois notion..I think you need to spend time in the gulag for some re-education XD
Many years ago I worked with a guy who did service on the Korean peninsular dressed in green attached to a signals outfit he told of finding a Russian jeep arrangement like this that turned out to be 4WD but built of ModelB ford parts the giveaway being the distinctive engine sound, I think from what Ive since discovered that would have been the for-runner to this vehicle, right or wrong? tell me I;m still intrigued by them.
Brice ;
Late to the party but yes, the engines and dashboards were almost direct copies made from the tooling Henry sold the Russians way back when that they never paid for .
Russia made essentially model ‘C’ engines well into the 1970’s, a local ‘A’ model partshaus imported a bunch but every one needed to come apart and be rectified of incredibly bad quality control and assembly .
-Nate
I’d buy one of these if it was cheap enough, like surplus cheap…reminds me of the Dodge M series they made in the 50s. Probably wouldn’t be allowed to be imported due to emissions and safety regs…I’m sure it has NONE of either. 🙂
Once its 25 yrs old you can import whatever smoking death trap your heart desires.
Not GAZ, but at least UAZ keeps on making its old 469 as the UAZ Hunter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469
My father told some stories of his military service. (Here in Hungary it was 2 years obligatory military service for all male over 18.) This was one of the most common military vehicle. The military convoy was always closed by flatbed and tow trucks to collect the broken down vehicles.