Some pictures from Russian motorsport history

[Andrew Kitson]

Originally Posted by helgi

MADI-01 1973 an open-wheel with 3000cm3 V6 GAZ engine. The car designing in my institute (I'm an engineer - tuning and technical control in automobile industry) Moscow Automobile Institute


Estonia 19M 1977
The grids of Formula-Vostok(East) championship were great!!!

That MADI looks very much Ensign F3/F.atlantic influenced, body shape, air intakes. The bottom picture has cars with familiar looking nose cones, Van Diemen (TARK), Reynard and Modus!

Fascinating thread.

[helgi]

Some photos taken by me at Oldtimer Gallery (Moscow) on March,8. There were many other cars, Estonia 20, for example. But they are too famous. These are less:

Estonia 15, entry level racing car with a bike engine, weights about 180 kg.


Estonia 18 - Formula-East (1,3L Lada engine) car. A step lower than F3.


Record-braking car Kharkov-L - Father and son Lorents posted about 30 records both World (FIA proven) and Soviet (that sometimes were even better than World but were not official)


Kiev Sport - one of many individual sportscars that were entered for Soviet Championship. This one had a selfmade tubeframe with different units (engine, suspension) from serial Volga and Moskvitch.



"Tartu-1" or "Estonia 8". Tiny sportscar restored just in time for expo.

And the most interesting for me. MADI 0313 racing car (all that left from it). I hope You can read an article about it in April Racecar Engineering. The car is to be restored in some months. But I don't know what modification they are going to restore. I hope - 0213/2 with that wing mounted at the airbox.

You can see cables and that block with resilient elements:

[Peter Mallett]

Keep it up Helgi. There may not be many replies but your input is appreciated.

[helgi]

I'll try but lots of cars (sportscars and saloon cars) were destroyed in 60's and 70's. There're only photos in museums. For example, from all 4 or 5 types of sportscars based on GAZ M20 Pobeda there's only a nose panel from the third car. We can only hope that someone is going to make a replica as in case with 1940 GAZ GL1.

[helgi]

Video. "Chasing the speed" part 2 - USSR autosport 1950-1970, the very start of our national touring/sportscar racing (1950).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO3fBLFj_Lo
10:40 - GAZ TR (Turbo Reactive) - the very first record breaking car with turboreactive engine (1954). The very first 4-point seatbelts.
Pobeda Sport, ZiL 112 and many many more.

[Graham Clayton]

A great set of photos here:

http://englishrussia.com/2009/03/26/soviet-racing/

[helgi]

Well, there're some serious mistakes in the text, while photos are rather known here and do not represent massive interest of Russian/Soviet people in racing.

Again and again I'll recomend to use Alexei Rogachev's site - http://www.ussr-autosport.ru/single_seaters_index.html

PS There was no "1,0 liter" cars in racing - Sapo (ZAZ) wasn't represented in racing. Lada had 1,3 and 1,6 engines and lovely Volga had 2,4 liters. It's pity that some foreign writers still have no clue what was really goind on but still ones put some strange thoughts onto paper.

[Cflawrence]

Hi

I really appreciate the photos of Soviet era cars that have been posted. Are there any books .. in any language .. that cover Soviet and other East Block racing cars from the post WWII era, particularly the 1950s and early '60s?

thanks

all my very best

Charles

[Graham Clayton]

Second-generation GAZ 24, taken at an unknown track at Kiev in 1980:

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Graham Clayton

Second-generation GAZ 24, taken at an unknown track at Kiev in 1980:

Something very 60's ATCC or BSCC about that shot, even though it's actually 20 odd years later!!