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The GAZ M21 Volga is an automobile produced in the Soviet Union by GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilniy Zavod, in English “Gorky automobile factory“) from 1956 to 1970. The first car to carry the Volga name, it was developed in the early 1950s. Volgas were built with high ground clearance (which gives it a specific “high“ look, contrary to “low-long-sleek“ look of Western cars of similar design), rugged suspension, strong and forgiving engine, and rustproofing on a scale unheard of in the 1950s. The Volga was stylistically in line with the major American manufacturers of the period in which it was introduced, and incorporated such then-luxury features as the reclining front seat, cigarette lighter, heater, windshield washer and three-wave radio. When in 1959 the six-cylinder line of GAZ cars was discontinued, GAZ M-21 Volga became the biggest and most luxurious car officially sold to individual owners in the USSR in large quantities; though its very high price made it unavailable for most car buyers, 639,478 cars were produced in total. During the development, the experience of foreign manufacturers was widely used, for the study of which, according to the tradition of those years, full-scale copies of modern foreign cars were attracted, such as the Plymouth Savoy Sedan of 1954, two Ford Mainline of the 1954 model year - with six- and eight-cylinder engines (USA) , Chevrolet 210 (in some sources - Styleline DeLuxe) 1953 model year (USA), Plymouth Savoy 1953 (USA), Kaiser Henry J 1952 (USA), Standard Vanguard 1952 (UK) and Opel Kapitän (Germany), possibly others. The first two were purchased to study automatic transmissions, as representatives of the largely polar schools of their design. Subsequently, these cars were used for comparative tests along with the M-21 running models. The nature and technical level of the involved analog cars was very different. So, “Opel“ and “Standard“ were very outdated models - the first was still a pre-war development, and the second went into production almost simultaneously with the “Pobeda“. Both models by this time were preparing for discontinuation. “Ford“ and “Plymouth“ were modern, for those times, models - the first went into production in 1952 model (fall of 1951 calendar), the second in 1953 (fall of 1952 calendar), but of them the more successful and perfect was “Ford “, And the“ Plymouth “of 1953-1954 was considered a“ transitional “model to more perfect designs. Certain features of foreign analogues were reflected in the Volga, especially in the design of individual body elements (for example, rotary door locks; nevertheless, the load-bearing body itself was the closest in design to the previous GAZ models - Pobeda and ZIM ) and the interior design (for example, the final version of the speedometer in the form of a transparent “hemisphere“ appeared only after studying the Ford car - the early prototypes of the M-21 had several different options for a completely different design of the instrument panel, completely recessed into the dashboard), which allows the conclusion about their careful study and the lack of sufficient personal experience in the design of modern cars. The design of the Volga took shape at an early stage of development. Its author, an experienced designer Lev Eremeev, relying on the tendencies of the world automobile fashion of those years - first of all, American “styling“, which at that time was dominated by aviation and, in part, rocket and space motives, managed to create a quite expressive image a modern, dynamic and rather elegant car with a rather complex body plastic, to a certain extent opposite to the predominantly utilitarian and functional appearance of Pobeda or the heavyweight style of ZIM GAZ-12 and passenger cars ZIS. From the point of view of the world automotive industry of those years, the exterior of the car was relatively restrained and practically did not contain any elements that stood out against the general background of the then style of elements - it is enough to compare it with the foreign analogues that were mass-produced 3-4 years earlier, the images of which are shown in the row on the left ... But by Soviet standards, Volga at the time of the start of its production, thanks to the nature of the selected surfaces, lines and decorative elements, looked very fresh, bold and unusual. In general, in terms of its level, the design of the prototypes of the M-21 surpassed a significant part of the serial foreign models of the 1953-1954 model years, that is, the period of its development. However, by the time of the start of production (1956), by world standards, the design of the Volga had already become at least ordinary, and did not stand out/ The Volga GAZ-21 (M-21) was quite widely represented on the foreign market, including outside the socialist camp. The network of GAZ dealers covered such countries as Belgium, Finland, Austria, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, Greece, Cyprus, England, countr
