GAZ or Volga? What does it matter? The cars come from the Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod “Gorky Automobile Factory”) or GAZ. And GAZ is the Russian car factory in Nizhny Novgorod and part of the GAZ group. The factory started in 1929 as NNAZ, a partnership between Ford and the Soviet Union. The name changed when the city name of Nizhny Novgorod was named after Maksim Gorki.
Armored and army vehicles
The factory currently makes a lot of armored vehicles, but civilian passenger cars have always been an important production component. But how many are made of it and how many are still driving? In Latvia we found at least one as good as brand new GAZ 24 'Volga' sedan. And "Volga"? We knew that before this mildly dated beauty appeared. These cars are built between 1968-1986.
These cars from the upper middle class were intended as a taxi or service car for the somewhat better type of government officials. And they had a lot of it in the former Soviet Republics. The later versions even had vanities such as power steering, a kind of ABS.
'Made in Belgium' too
The Volgas assembled at Scaldia-Volga SA in Belgium were also offered with a Peugeot diesel engine on request. On the Austrian market, the Volga was sold as Attaché (sedan) or Commander (combi). For countries with left-hand traffic such as Indonesia, India or Great Britain, there were right-hand drive cars. That way, the car brought quite a bit of hard currency to the ever-yearning Red Empire.
The GAZ 24 has evolved considerably over the years. There were also station wagon and delivery van versions. The 1978 series was revised for 24, with the bumpers also changing the length. From 1985 onwards, production was adjusted to larger numbers and the model was simplified. From that moment on, the car was named GAZ 24-10. Shortly before that, the GAZ 3102 also went into production, a luxurious version of the 24 model. In addition to numerous body details for the modernized 3102-24, the new K10 carburetor, which was more fuel efficient, was taken over from the 151. The engine delivered a thick 100 hp.
A ZGAN GAZ 24-10
We found such a GAZ 24-10 in Estonia where time has stood still in different ways. The car is as good as new and because our Estonians are convinced that 'we' are all incredibly rich, they came up with an enthusiastic asking price on the spot: 20.000 euro.
And why wouldn't a GAZ Volga 24-10 be worth that? Take a look at what Testa Rossas and AC Cobras are doing at auctions these days. And those are actually just old cars.
For KGB Officers only
Oh yes: GAZ 24-24s have also been made. They had five liter V8 engines of more than 200 hp. As a private individual you could not buy such cars. They were ridden exclusively by Putin's former colleagues of the KGB.
We are curious what our friends from Estonia would ask for such a Volga GAZ 24-24. If you realize that for your happiness you absolutely want this Volga, you can send an email to our friend and AMK reader Ariën, who professionally supplies his Estonian relations with disposable razor blades and other capitalist achievements and who ran into this car: akroon.export@gmail.com
Do you register when the Volga is here? Then we make a story about it.
