In the heyday of the Cold War, the former Eastern Bloc, communism, Russia was getting ready to invade Hungary and endanger world peace, Arkadij Dmitrievich Babich was thinking of completely different things. His own sports car: The Leningrad Sport Custom! We are then talking about 1956.
While in the free, but troubled by the Eastern bloc, a sports car had been commonplace for decades, the Eastern bloc was mainly concerned with the arms race, austerity, frugality and the government's squeezing. They were not allowed to experience pleasure, 'laughter' could only be looked up in a dictionary.
In a damp shed
The aforementioned craftsman spent every free moment in his humid shed in his hometown Leningrad - that city is now in the books as St. Petersburg - to realize his dream. He seems to have been able to build three sports cars in which his first creation was powered by a V2 motorcycle engine from an unknown brand. The 90 kilometers per hour could be achieved on top. He built - it seems - three years. That it was quality was clear when he once completed the ride from Simferopol (in Crimea) to Leningrad in 3,5 hours. A distance of 12 kilometers. 'Apple egg' do we hear you think? Not really, because a) happened that 130 years ago and b) the roads in Russia were (and are) abominably bad. His talent was noticed by his superiors, because at a later stage he became involved in designing and building a tubular chassis for a racing car, the KVN-20S driven by the drivers Kosenkov and Silantev. No, that car never drove in the West, because there was no chance in advance. The Leningrad Sport Custom, because that's what the designer called his creation, still exists. Must be restored ...
