It may seem surprising to many today, but foreign cars in the USSR existed, although they were, of course, a rarity. Those who possessed them belonged exclusively to the upper class. It should be noted that even the possession of an ordinary car was considered prestigious, because the state had long relied on the development of industry, therefore it produced mainly heavy equipment. Passenger car industry developed exclusively on the residual principle.
We can arbitrarily distinguish three main stages - from the October Revolution to the Great Patriotic War, the post-war period and until the beginning of the 70s and, finally, the commissioning of the automobile plant in Togliatti, which was a real breakthrough when it became much easier to have personal transport. Naturally, the maximum number of cars, especially foreign ones, was concentrated in large cities. In addition to Moscow and Leningrad, it is Minsk, Kiev, the Baltic capitals. Traffic on the roads of Moscow in the 80s became relatively high and dense. The flow of domestic cars occasionally, but interrupted by foreign cars in the USSR. Moreover, the first of them appeared almost immediately after the October Revolution.
The first foreign cars
Foreign cars in the USSR, and indeed cars, were so rare that even Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote about his desire to get his own "iron horse" in his poems. The poet emphasized that when his dream came true, "distances became close, and kilometers became short." The classic even claimed that his day after that doubled.
Mayakovsky bought the car during one of his trips to Paris at the whim of Lily Brik.
It is believed that the first foreign car in the USSR belonged to Vladimir Lenin. It was expropriated from the Rolls-Royce monarchs. Moreover, Lenin had not one foreign car in the USSR. His first foreign-made car was the Turcat-Mery, which was previously driven by one of the daughters of Emperor Nicholas II. At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich got the car after Kerensky, since initially the royal garage was at the disposal of the Provisional Government. True, he did not use this car for very long. As they say, already in December 1917, an unknown stole him directly from Smolny.
After Lenin went on several more foreign cars. In the USSR, models and photos of these machines were well known to everyone. These were the Renault 40 CV with brake booster and the 7-year-old Delaunay-Belleville.
In the 30s, opera singer Antonina Nezhdanova owned a Ford, Lyubov Orlova went on a Packard, Bolshoi Theater ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya on a Ford cabriolet.
What did the leaders move about?
The next leader of the Soviet state after Lenin was Joseph Stalin. He moved exclusively on foreign cars, preferring the American Packard Twin Six to European models. Later he moved to the armored car that Roosevelt gave him.
However, he did not really like the idea of driving a foreign-made car, so the Stalin plant was given the task: to design his own Packard.
Nikita Khrushchev, who cracked down on Stalin’s personality cult, did not go far from his predecessor in an addiction to cars. He mainly used a Cadillac with a convertible-type bodywork. It is noteworthy that during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler moved on this car in his headquarters near Vinnitsa.
Naturally, Khrushchev publicly tried not to appear on the Cadillac. For official events and ceremonial demonstration shootings, he used exclusively domestic ZIS. The foreign car was his personal acquisition. Contemporaries argue that the American auto industry generally made a strong impression on him. It is no coincidence that since then the Soviet “Seagulls” and ZILs have been so reminiscent of “Cadillacs” and “Lincoln”. In addition, Khrushchev himself liked to buy foreign cars. Moreover, he himself did not use them, but handed them over to especially close ones as an incentive or to those to whom they were more needed. For example, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud worked at the home of the elderly Bolsheviks, and the Mercedes 300 SL model - at the Leningrad Research Institute of Fuel Equipment. It is worth recognizing that he did not forget about the closest, his family. He gave his son Sergey the first Fiat in Soviet land, and his daughter Rada drove a Renault Florida car.
A big fan of foreign cars was Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. His first foreign car was Buick 90 Limited from the USA, on which he moved in the late 30s.
Among the cars that he used were exclusively foreign-made cars of all makes and calibers. For almost two decades, which he was in power in the country, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce, Nissan, Mercedes visited the party garage. And he never bought these cars. They were given to him. Among the generous world leaders were the American president, the Queen of Great Britain, the German Chancellor, and the Japanese Prime Minister.
It is known that Brezhnev loved to drive fast. Moreover, before his health deteriorated significantly, he often got behind the wheel. Eyewitnesses claim that with this behavior he terrified the assistants who were supposed to ensure his safety. In addition, he perplexed the numerous retinue.
Foreign cars used and the last Soviet leader Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. But at that time, the perestroika announced by him was already in full swing in the country. And a foreign-made machine was no surprise to anyone.
Post-war period
Judging by the photo, there were much more foreign cars in the USSR. The Red Army at that time received a huge amount of foreign military equipment. She acted on Lend-Lease from the Allies. There were especially many trophies at the final stage of the confrontation with the Nazis.
This not only pleased private individuals, but also contributed to the development of the entire industry in the Soviet Union. "Opel" contributed to the development of the "Moskvich", and the motorcycle "Ural" became an almost exact copy of the BMW.
A real breakthrough occurred in the 50s, when the Soviet auto industry began to actively copy the decisions of engineers of the allied countries.
Of course, German trophies were mostly in the hands of senior officials and celebrities. At the same time, there is no reliable information about which cars and to whom they belonged at that time.
Who got foreign cars?
In the 1960s, foreign cars in the USSR were mainly assigned to embassies. Mostly capitalist countries. That is why often there were diplomatic numbers with foreign cars in the USSR.
Many foreign-made cars were also in the central apparatus of the CPSU. It is well known that foreign cars were a frequent gift from foreign delegations to the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. Moreover, these were extremely progressive models for those years.
As the photo confirms, foreign cars in the USSR in the 1960s with foreign numbers moved mainly around Moscow. Going on such a car for 101 kilometers was not easy.
In 1965, the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Yuri Gagarin, became the owner of a foreign car. This happened after he visited the French company MATRA, which, in addition to the production of space and rocket equipment, also produced cars. It is said that Gagarin was captured by Matra-Bonnet Jet VS with a fiberglass body. It was this model of blue that he soon received in Moscow as a gift from the French government. True, he rarely used foreign equipment, preferring to move around on the domestic Volga.
The situation in the 70s
In this decade, the situation began to change dramatically. The main difference from the previous period was that foreign cars in the USSR in the 70s became easily accessible to popular actors, directors and other celebrities of all stripes. They already traveled exclusively with Soviet numbers.
One of the first who changed foreign-made cars like gloves was Vladimir Vysotsky. In less than ten years, he has changed five cars in a row. It is possible that there were even more of them. Judging by the photos of foreign cars in the USSR in the 70s, the poet and actor was a fan of Mercedes. He had a blue Mercedes-Benz S-class sedan and a brown coupe. He also moved to BMW and Ford.
Repair and service
The situation with the maintenance and repair of cars in the Soviet Union was not easy. Problems existed even with domestic cars. A personal acquaintance with a mechanic was considered a major and enviable success.
Most often, foreign cars were repaired in the garage when managing the affairs of the diplomatic corps. Here were the most competent specialists. Ambassadorial cars, as a rule, were serviced at the consulates themselves, large ones even had their own stations and car repair shops. If a foreign car was in the hands of a mere mortal, he had to get out on his own. There were no official dealerships, although isolated services for foreign cars did exist in large cities.
The owners of the foreign automobile industry also had problems of a different nature. For example, in the USSR there was no high-octane gasoline. Because of this, motors on foreign-made cars were constantly overheating and detonating. By the mid-70s, a special office even appeared in the Medvedkovo area, which could sell a ton of high-grade gasoline under a special document.
The gas station on Kropotkinskaya was famous. Queues never existed there; a government fleet was refueling there. Until she appeared, private traders constantly had to invent all kinds of workarounds.
How to get a foreign car?
Getting ownership of a foreign car in the USSR in the 80s, and even earlier, was not an easy task. In the history of the Soviet Union there are isolated cases when such machines were in the hands of ordinary mortals.
One of the rare examples is Alexander Vershinsky. This is a representative of the intelligentsia, a famous scientist-oceanologist. At the same time, despite numerous merits, he could not stand in line for a new car. The only way to get your own vehicle was a separate line for decommissioned equipment. Used cars of ministries and motor vehicles, taxis could be provided here. However, they often found themselves in terrible condition, for example, without headlights, a cabin or windows. But the queue for them still existed, and it was very impressive.
When the treasured day came, a document was issued that should be used within three to five days, choosing from a limited range of products.
Rarely, but it happened when next to battered "Volga" and "Muscovites" were foreign cars. In the repair of such machines had to invest a lot of time and effort.
Vershinsky in this way privately obtained second-hand foreign cars. He restored them using acquaintances, improvised materials and golden hands. Among the cars that belonged to him were the Dodge, Chevrolet, Datsun.
Bulk import
The situation with foreign cars in the USSR in the 80s changed dramatically. In 1985, with the beginning of perestroika, mass import of used cars of foreign manufacture was launched. New specimens came across, but rarely and only on order.
Basically, the countries of the former socialist camp acted as suppliers. “Skoda” was considered the most desirable at that time, there were also many “Trabante” from the GDR and the Yugoslav Zastava, although they were quoted much lower. Sailors could bring the right-hand drive "Japanese."
In the early 90s, a real boom of the foreign automobile industry in the country began. BMW, Mercedes, Fords and Volkswagen were brought from Europe. This business was highly profitable, but unsafe. Often, bandits could pick up a car along the way. At the opposite end of the country, Japanese right-hand drive vehicles were massively imported. This method was much safer, since the suppliers acted officially, and the cars for sale were taken on ships, ferries and barges.
In the service of the law
Contrary to popular belief, the service in the police was not only domestic cars, as shown in most films. The first foreign cars in the traffic police in the USSR appeared immediately after the Great Patriotic War. True, the structure itself at that time was called differently - ORUD (Department for Traffic Regulation).
At that time, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs was transferred equipment received by Lend-Lease. However, the situation on the roads still remained unstable. There were a lot of violators, and there were always not enough cars and employees.
The situation in the traffic police is fundamentally changing in the late 60s. Significant is the appearance in the leadership of Valery Lukyanov, who was appointed head of the Main Directorate of the All-Union Traffic Police at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was under him that units of the patrol and guard service were created, means of regulating traffic were introduced, and imported equipment was purchased.
In the capital's traffic police, foreign cars began to appear in the early 70s. In particular, it was a car brands Mercedes and Tatra.
The next batch of police cars arrived in 1976. These were already more powerful and reliable Mercedes W116 models. They turned out to be much better suited for the role of escort car. This time, foreign cars received not only the law enforcement bodies of the capital. One was transferred to Kiev and Leningrad.
In the future, the entry of a foreign automobile industry into the traffic police began to occur on a regular basis. The Mercedes party was followed by a BMW party. You can even see one of them in the legendary Soviet detective series "Experts Conduct Investigation."
Since the beginning of the 80s, the supply of foreign equipment for the needs of the police has become regular.
Trucks
The situation was especially with trucks in the USSR. Foreign cars in this segment were urgently needed. In 1924, own production was started, but it could not satisfy the ever-growing demand.
Already in the 1920s, the Soviet Union began the massive acquisition of trucks abroad. At that time, the ambulance services traveled on the Mercedes, and the postmen rode on the French Amilcar. Before the start of production of ZIS buses in Moscow, British Leyland cruised.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, there were especially many foreign-made truck trucks in the USSR — about four thousand. For example, for the needs of the army, American six-ton Moreland was purchased.