Moskvich 400 is a prominent representative of the Soviet "midget car" of the post-war years, which was produced on MZMA plant from 1946 to 1956 and is almost an exact copy of the German car Opel Cadet K38, manufactured by General Motors in 1937-1940.
The Great Patriotic War ended and the first work on the design of the Soviet budget midget car started at the Moscow automobile plant. In 1945 the delegation of the Soviet engineers went to Germany with a visit to see interesting and advanced industrial facilities. They examined the company "Scientific-technical automotive bureau" and "Bayerische Motoren Werke" together with the plant, there they took some copies of the cars for the presentation to the leader, which would serve as the basis for the creation of the Soviet vehicle. Since Stalin did not want to see any more either KIM or something resembling it, he decided in favor of "Cadet K38". Right after it the order was issued to take away a small part of tooling from the German factory.
As the result, a new Russelsheim assembly line was set, which began to produce the first parts for future car. Dybov O., who at that time served as deputy chief designer, offered to call a vehicle “Moskvich” in honor of the holiday "800 years of Moscow" . The "top" of the USSR undoubtedly liked it and the leaders approved it. Externally, the differences between the Soviet car and the German Cadet were virtually invisible, if you do not look precisely at the nameplates. But as Opel belonged to General Motors Company, the measurements were given in inches, Moskvich had to be processed and all the parts in the metric system had to be replaced by the domestic ones.
Moskvich possessed the ideal combination of simplicity, comfort and optimal technical solutions, thanks to which it became almost the most popular car of the time. The model 400 had a four-cylinder low valve engine. To reduce the cost of construction, cylinders and heads were made of very cheap alloy and to make it possible to repair the "heart" of Moskvich by illiterate drivers, the access to the most important units was made as easy as possible. By the way, in spite of the small capacity - only 23 hp, Moskvich could well accelerate up to 90 km / h, but only on a perfectly flat road. The car was filled with gasoline of octane rating 66, the engine had a compression ratio of about 5.8, and could boast with enviable longevity.
After a few of years after the launch of line production of Moskvich base model, the designers basing on the experience of their European neighbors released a compact van with a wooden frame body having an index of 400-422. Its capacity was only 200 kg and because of its bakelised plywood this car was called "Pinocchio." Their production can not be called massive because of the apparent fragility and impermanence, so designers returned to the improvement of the main modifications.
The works lasted for almost 2 years, and as a result a brand new model of the engine with a capacity for 26 hp, the new collectors and the index of 401 were presented in 1954. That is how the old-new Moskvich-401-420 was created. Many past failures were eliminated at the upgraded model, although they practically didn’t affect the overall picture of this car. That is why Moskvich 401 was not accepted as a separate model.
