Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Rodding in Russian: Andrey Tkachenko Continue reading the Original Blog Post
No matter where you go you cannot get away from "traditional" rods and customs -- and that is a good thing.
Andrey is an excellent illustrator with great ideas and taste. Actually, the cars that Russians have to work with are "American", in the sense that the Russian designers always copied American iron anyway, usually lagging about 5-10 years behind. I recall the Russian limos during the 6o's were almost identical to '55 Packards! In looking at Andrey's work, it seems that they have their own '54 Merc/Ford, too.
Good catch Tom. The Soviets bought a pant load of tooling from Studebaker, long after their acquisition of Packard in the mid/late 50s. The ZIL and ZIS (I think) were Packard "knock offs". I thought they might have shagged some Clipper era stuff too. I might check it out. The artist, nice work. Although, that 30s coupe looks like it stopped in for tie rod service(!). This one wears me out! Daytona Cobra meets Cheetah!
At the least they have Mercedes Benz v-8s and whatever engines they built for the Zil and Chayka. I love that Pobeda Raider concept - rally race type car.
I always liked this Volga some Russian hotrodders built on a BMW chassis...some top-notch craftsmanship in this one!
He has a great eye and imagination. They really copied the hell out of american cars there over there! The packard looking el camino with bike is my fav.
People have been building hot rods and customs all over the world. The circumstances that led Americans to tweak their cars weren't limited to the US. I have a friend in China who has been modifying cars since he was a teenager, and he certainly never lacked for material, either American or Chinese. Their big v-8s are no slouches, either. They had lots of Russian Chaikas, which have v-8s very similar to Ford's Y-blocks. I drove a Honqi sedan, a Chinese car from the fifties with a v-8, and it had all the power of an American v-8. Far from limited resources, my Chinese friend mostly suffers from limited opportunities to go drive: because of air pollution, it's unlawful to drive a car in metro Beijing that is more than fifteen years old. When he wants to drive his cars, he needs a police escort to pretend that he's in a parade. Thankfully, he's got lots of friends on the local police force. It helps, of course, that he lives in China's equivalent of Hollywood, and he often takes famous actors for drives around town. The cops like to meet the actors, so they're always available to go for a "parade." As it happens, the cops also are happy to go for a "parade" with an American lawyer driving the cool old car! (they didn't even check my driver's license, which is good, since I didn't have one.) Besides being very much a hot rodder and custom lover, my friend also has an antique car museum. Having been in his museum, I can assure you that the Chinese, like the Russians, don't lack for cars to customize. They have American cars and their own, which are similar enough that they make great customs, not at all unlike what we have here, just called by different names in a different language.
It's said that Ford did a lend lease deal with Russia and sold them tooling for B four cylinder engines. A rumor going around for years is that Don Vesco bought the Russian tooling to produce blocks for his LSR cars. Not true according to those in the know.
The Russians got (trade agreements or lend lease) or copied (reverse engineered / pirated) a LOT of stuff from WWII from the US and other countries - from Ford cars and trucks, to Chevies, to B-29s. Gary The GAZ NAZ-A (Model A Ford) began in 1932 The Tupolev TU-4 Bull
The first (unauthorized) Russian copy of a DC-3 was so accurate that a rather obscure structural defect inherent in the early versions (the copied one, before it got returned, was an original early version) caused it to eventually crash. The DC-3 designers caught the defect before any "real" ones were lost, and did some sort of retrofit, which eliminated the problem. The designers suspected the defect could cause a crash, and it was only confirmed when the Russian copy went down. That first copy that crashed was monitored by spooks back then and they knew when it was flying and how many hours it had when it crashed, and the failure occurred near exactly when theDC-3 designers suspected it would. There were a few ports of call where ships from USSR and "Western" Countries both were allowed to visit. A lot of "ship" guys are gearheads, and no doubt that is where some of the engines or whatever else the Russian gearheads got their hands on came from. I'm talking about during the cold-war. And keep in mind during WW2 Roosevelt gave Stalin all kinds of aircraft like B-17's, B-24's (Uncle Joe was given the Norden Bombsight long before the RAF ever got one) and various frontline fighters, too, allong with trucks, jeeps.... And, there was also a US air bomber base in Poltava (Ukraine) during WW2 also, which likely caused some gearhead infection there.
When a HAMBer in Russia posts a photo-shopped channeled and chopped sedan, is it considered cyber hacking?
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