History Old Soviet engine

My fiancé, a lifelong mechanic, has quite the collection of old junque. She has more old car and truck parts than we can catalog. Must of it is quite unique. But one thing stands out more than all the rest.

She happens to have an engine for one of these:


For the uninitiated, this is a Soviet car, known as the GAZ M20 Pobeda.

Don't have any pics of the engine yet, but I will get some if there's any interest.

It is 100% complete, and she even has the transmission to go with it. It is currently torn down to the short block for regasketing.

She acquired it some years back from an obscure FB Marketplace listing simply titled "engine". Being the good old junque collector she is, she bought it having not the slightest clue what it was or where it came from. Gave only 50 bucks for it. Some guy apparently found it in a barn on some property he bought. The rest of the car was in the woods on the property, but too far gone to be worth messing with. She was only able to identify it by the casting numbers, and the Russian lettering on the block.

I'm trying to determine how rare of a find this is. Soviet cars were (obviously) never sold in the US. We are in SW Michigan, so maybe it came over from Canada? I can't find any verifiable record of a single one of these cars being in the country anywhere. Lads, I believe this is as rare as they come. For the curious, we do have plans for it....

 

BY ALL MEANS get us some pictures...
FELLAS... we got a new challenge

 

Paging @34GAZ to the front desk.

 

Njet

 

@Ifitaintbroke i have seen a few for sale in America on Ebay . The Berlin Wall fell end of 1989 and i guess thats when people jumped in their old Russian jalopy and headed this way. Then the import/export wheelerdealers started buying up all that strange stuff. I had two of those Pobeda, bought them about 1999. One just over the border in Germany and one in Belgium. Poland had a similar car, FSO Warszawa with a different grille.
Both my Pobeda had a decent size 4 cyl flathead , one had column shift and one had floor shift. Banjo rear axle just like Ford and 16 inch wheels. I allready had my '34 GAZ which was actually a Russian copy of a '34 Ford except it had a straight 6.

 

Please show us that one.

 

Guess you mean the '34 GAZ .
Hamb member @dutchrod has it now and is converting it from a fordor into coupe. He has a build thread.

 

an added story, search here for Projects thread 1934 GAZ (RussianFord)

 

Maybe she can trade it for something cool like an air cooled V8 Hemi from a Tatra?

 

OH man I would love to get my hands on one

 

Like the look of that car. But must say that is some lady you have there.

 

You have no idea. She's mainly a Ford/Saab girl.

 

This is a flathead 4, with a floor shift. Not sure yet if it's 3 or 4 speed. I'd bet on 3.

 

For those like myself who thought "Wait, What?" but don't want to go too far
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tatra-603-hemi-v8.484366/

 

My woman would LOVE to get her greasy hands on one of those. That'd look nice under the hood of our Saab 900....

 

We need pictures. The car and the fiancée. Asking for a friend.

 

Yes on the engine, no on the fiancé. She's camera shy....

 

but it's for a friend!
Actually, @Bandit Billy just posted elsewhere that we are all family, so even better!

 

Well lads, she gave me permission. I'll try to get them both in the same shot.

EDIT: It will have to be tonight or tomorrow, so be patient.

 

I was teasing!
>>>>>
This is the net. If I want to look at people, there are sites for that!

 

Too late now bud. I'm not dumb enough to bother her for nothing.

 

As I sought an “equivalent” to Richard Scaldwell’s 5.0L aircooled JAP engine in his GN recreation, I briefly looked at the Tatra air cooled V8s. Haha!

 

A Soviet banger powered roadster could be pretty neat, if you could get it together and running. I'd also like to see what this engine looks like.

 

All this talk of “Soviets” now has me wondering if there are any “hot rodders” in Russia? I know of the YT channel Garage 54 and their crazy antics, but not hot rodding.

 

Those guys are the automotive expression of "meanwhile in Russia". Love their channel.

 

Surely you have seen the custom V12 Volga hardtop coupe from about 10 or 12 years ago. Pure elegance compared to a normal Volga.

 

[

No, but now YT had this in my feed…

 

Arright yall, here it is:



I was surprised to find decent port design, though they could definitely use some work.

Casting #'s

Though it appears to say "FAG", it actually says GAZ in Russian.

Front of the block:

Transmission. The 2nd "shifter", further back in the picture, is actually a parking brake. I think.

The small parts:

The head:




The eventual plan is to build a small roadster around the engine. The lady wants to do a tube frame.

 

I think you need to build her another barn and have a clean room to build engines in .