GAZ M1 or simply Emka is a famous Soviet car, which was the most popular passenger car in the pre-war period of the history of the USSR. GAZ-M-1, "Emka" is an iconic model of the pre-war and war years.
The first, in fact, a new machine developed by the technical department of the Molotov plant.
And although under the 1929 agreement with "Ford"
American auto giant transferring documentation to the Soviet side on its promising
a passenger model, GAZ engineers had to master it, create all the equipment
yourself. Thus, they were spared from simply copying the new Ford.
Work on the creation of the M-1 began in September 1933, with the transition from HATH to GAZ, chief designer Andrei Aleksandrovich Lipgart.
Despite the external resemblance to the 1934 Ford-B sedan model year, the GAZ-M-1 still had its own original chassis that meets local conditions - with a more powerful frame and an X-shaped
an amplifier, on four hydraulic springs instead of two transverse ones, with stamped wheels instead of spoked ones. Four-cylinder engine, boosted by type "Ford" up to 50 hp, differed from the GAZ-A engine with an increased compression ratio, a more advanced carburetor, a newly introduced fuel pump, a water pump, an automatic ignition timing and a pressure lubrication system.
The first prototype took only four months to build. And by the end of January 1934, a car with a purchased Ford body on the original M-1 chassis was ready.
This is how Lipgart himself remembered him:
“This sample had a lot of slips and was lousy built. The car could only be driven extremely carefully, since its frame, welded from pieces (they could not get long sheets), could break. Tests were out of the question. And yet this car
has been of great benefit to us. On it, we showed what type our new model would be, and received approval of this type from Comrade Ordzhonikidze.
In the process of working on this machine, we taught the designers, and each of them got the opportunity to see the details,
made according to his drawings, to feel these details, to feel the advantages and disadvantages of their work. "
The Emka was a coveted car in civilian fleets
institutions and military units. The drivers loved its reliability and strength, ease of maintenance and patching holes in the iron, for its unpretentiousness to high-quality fuel and
satisfactory cross-country ability, for whatever, but not blown comfort. Production of the M-1 was interrupted at the end of August 1941, but small-scale assembly from the remaining spare parts continued until January 1942. A total of 62,888 cars were produced
