KavZ - hybrids of trucks and buses

KAvZ brand buses were widely distributed in the USSR and in the post-Soviet space. Not everyone knew exactly what they were called, for many it was a strange hybrid based on trucks from the Gorky Automobile Plant.


Few people thought about how a bus was made from the same GAZ-52/53. Far from passenger traffic, people were sure that this was some kind of ridiculous model of the Gorky Automobile Plant.

But this is not GAZ at all, but a full-fledged bus. It has been produced in Kurgan since the 1950s and not in one modification.



KAvZ models were loved on the periphery, among shift workers, far from large settlements and paved roads. The buses were notable for their simplicity of design, high reliability, and incredible maintainability for modern models.

The history of the birth of the KAvZ plant

There were not enough cars in the Soviet Union, especially in the post-war years. By the early 1940s, the situation began to improve. But due to the outbreak of hostilities, the USSR was thrown back in the development of civil society. In 1945, a situation arose when it was necessary to build a destroyed country.

At first, trucks were required, and they began to be produced in huge quantities. But the buses were developed already in the order of the second stage, although the situation with them was no less catastrophic.



In 1957, they signed a decree on organizing the production of buses at the Kurgan plant No. 673, using free space for this.



All this is great, but there were no workshops and equipment, everything had to be built from scratch, and buses were needed “yesterday ago”. I had to take the simplest PAZ-651A as an example, and produce it on the GAZ-51 chassis supplied from the Gorky Automobile Plant.

The first machine was built in 1958 - even before the completion of the workshops. It is this time that is considered the start of serial production at the Kurgan Bus Plant.

PAZ or KAvZ?

The first year, production was more like a screwdriver assembly, but soon everything changed. The factory workers actively replaced parts from the PAZ with their own, and in May 1959 a full-fledged assembly line was launched. There was nothing complicated in the manufacture of bus bodies.

PAZ already in 1961 stopped the production of bonneted passenger cars. But the model in Kurgan still bore this name.

Until 1962, when the bonnet bus was finally renamed KAVZ, the factory workers managed to develop several new models under the PAZ index:

• ? Car shop 659
  
• ? LPG version 651Zh
  

In 1962, a special version appeared, used as a geophysical laboratory - already KAvZ-663.



The main model of the Kurgan Bus Plant was PAZ / KAvZ-651 in various modifications. It was released until 1973.

Experienced models

The designers of KAVZ tried to develop their own models. This was facilitated by the management of the enterprise, issuing in 1960 an order to organize an experimental workshop for the production and testing of new types of equipment.

Several unique machines were made there:

• ? Passenger bus on GAZ-63E chassis
  
• ? KavZ-985 based on GAZ-51A
  

In addition, the designers were actively working on the creation of KAvZ-831 trailers. These were mobile buffets, cinemas, residential houses and change houses on wheels. Unfortunately, none of these projects was ever implemented - the country needed the maximum number of buses, and the conveyor was fully loaded with PAZ / KAVZ-651.

New models

Naturally, at the Kurgan plant they understood that with the advent of the GAZ-52/53 family of trucks, sooner or later they would have to master a new modification of their bus. Therefore, work began back in 1961, when mass production of the GAZ-53 had just started.
In 1964, the KAvZ-685, created on the GAZ-986 chassis, was added to the experimental KAvZ-52.



Work on the launch of new models of bonneted buses in the series was carried out for exactly 10 years. The KAvZ-986 was eventually abandoned, choosing a more powerful version on the GAZ-53 chassis - KAvZ-685.



The new hooded bus has become a real long-liver - it was subjected to repeated upgrades, the last of which bore the index 39762. The model survived the Soviet Union and was produced until 2007.

Kurgan LiAZ or cabover KAvZ

At the very beginning of its existence, the Kurgan plant tried to create a new model of cabover passenger bus. This was done in order to move to another "weight category" - to start producing city cars.

KAVZ-3100 Siberia was developed together with LiAZ-677, so it seems to be some kind of shortened version of one of the most massive Soviet buses.



The first prototype appeared in 1963, but it was only 29 years later that the model was finalized and a batch of 12 buses was produced.

But the Ministry of the Automotive Industry considered that everyone should mind their own business, and the country does not need a shortened LiAZ under a different name. As a result, the KAVZ-3100 Siberia project was closed. Moreover, “from above” an order came not to do stupid things, but to throw all their efforts into increasing the production of standard KAvZ-685.

Rotational buses

But with bonnet buses at the Kurgan plant, everything worked out. In the early 1980s, the company had to master off-road models in accordance with the order of the Ministry of the Automotive Industry.

The vehicle under the index 4947 was developed at the Lviv All-Union Design and Experimental Institute of Bus Construction. It was a machine on the Ural-375K chassis, designed for geologists, oil workers and builders working in the most remote and hard-to-reach corners of the Soviet Union.



It was planned to produce a bus at the Neftekamsk dump truck plant, but he did not cope with the task, and it was transferred to KAvZ.

In order to start production of the new model as soon as possible, it was decided to combine the KAVZ-685 body with the Ural-375K chassis. The result was KAvZ-49471, which was produced until 1985.

There was a similar hybrid on the ZIL-130G-80 chassis. It was handed over together with the technical documentation to the Tokmak ARZ in 1985.

Already after the collapse of the Soviet Union, KavZ produced a batch of rotational shifts on special order for Spetsgazavtotrans. The models were created on the Ural-4320 chassis in 1998.



But it was KAvZ-651 and KAvZ-685 that were the symbol of the off-road bonneted bus. Despite the fact that these cars were never all-wheel drive, due to their relationship with the GAZ-51 and GAZ-53, they had a high ground clearance. Dual tires also increased throughput.

In rural areas, these buses competed with PAZs. But where there were not even gravel roads, in mountainous and desert areas, no other serial passenger transport could compete with KAVZ.

Various enterprises often used KAvZ-685 to deliver their employees to suburban facilities, such as farms.

A ridiculous but memorable hybrid of a bus and a KavZ truck has become one of the symbols of the Soviet era. Even at the beginning of the XNUMXst century, these machines evoked kind smiles from people who involuntarily recall their youth.