Moskvich Racing Cars: From the 400 to the G5 Single-Seater

Moskvich racing cars at a glance

The table combines figures from the factory history in the old 1cars article with published technical data for the G-series. Outputs for the early cars are period factory figures.

Background: racing a small family car

The factory's first competition car was its standard product, the Moskvich-400, a pre-war Opel Kadett design built after the war on Opel's tooling. In 1951, at the first national trials for such cars, drivers raced almost stock 400s. The engineers then tuned the 1.1-litre side-valve engine from its standard 17 kW (23 hp) to 25 kW (34 hp). According to the old article, the tuned car reached about 114 km/h, against 90 km/h for a standard one.

Budgets were small, so the sports department relied on production parts and introduced new ones slowly. In the old text's words, the racing cars of the 1950s and 1960s were a test bed for engines that later went into series production, and that pattern explains much of the G-series story.

Sports cars built from production models

404 Sport (1954)

In 1954 the factory built the 404 Sport, an open two-seater on Moskvich running gear. Its experimental 1.1-litre engine, designed by Okunev, used four carburettors from the Izh-49 motorcycle and gave about 43 kW (58 hp) and a top speed of about 147 km/h. Drivers took second place in the national championship in 1954 and third in 1955, and later won the title. From 1959 it received a tuned 407 engine with about 51 kW (70 hp), good for 156 km/h, plus front wishbones from the 407 and 13-inch wheels instead of 15-inch ones.

Lightweight 407 coupés (1962)

For 1962 the factory turned a pair of two-door 407s into lightweight racers. It stripped out trim, lowered the ride height and added a rear anti-roll bar, bringing weight down to about 860 kg. A 1.36-litre engine with four carburettors gave about 55 kW (75 hp) and 150 km/h. One car later received the 408 engine with twin Weber carburettors and about 60 kW (81 hp). The coupés raced until 1965 and won a bronze medal in 1962.

G1 and G2: the first purpose-built racers

The G1 of 1955, designed by Igor Gladilin, was the first Moskvich built specifically for racing. It had a tubular frame with aluminium panels and, unusually for the time, its engine behind the driver. The 1,074 cc four-cylinder, derived from the series engine, used four Izh-49 carburettors and produced 52 kW (70 hp), for a top speed of about 190 km/h. Brakes, suspension and wheels came from the Moskvich-401 because funds were short, although the old article notes that the G1 introduced separate brake circuits for the front and rear axles. From 1959 a 1.3-litre 407-based engine replaced the original unit.

In 1956 the G1 body was replaced by a streamlined body with covered wheels, and the car became the G2. This record car could run as an open spider or with a closed canopy over the driver. The G2 weighed about 660 kg, carried a 120-litre fuel tank beside the driver and set several national speed records in 1956, reaching about 223 km/h. In 1959 it received the 1.3-litre engine and a roll bar. In 1960 the car went back to an open-wheel body as the G1, raced in that form until 1963 and was then scrapped; its design was the base for the later G-cars.

G3: the front-engined single-seater (1961)

The G3, built by Gladilin and Lev Shugurov and first run in spring 1961, was the only front-engined Moskvich single-seater. To lower the driver, the engine was set low and the propshaft ran to the right of the seat. According to the old article, three frames were prepared but only one car was completed. With a 407-based engine of about 56 kW (76 hp) and 13-inch wheels, it reached about 170 km/h and won the national title in 1961 and silver in 1962.

G4: rear engine and independent suspension (1963)

The G4 of 1963 went back to a rear engine and was the first Moskvich racer with independent suspension front and rear, using parts from the 407, and rack-and-pinion steering. Three were built, on a rigid spaceframe with aluminium skin. Their development followed the factory's production engines:

• G4 (1963): 1,358 cc OHV four with four Lenkarz motorcycle carburettors, 56 kW (76 PS);
• G4A (1965): 408-based engine with new camshafts and twin Weber 40DCO carburettors, 60 kW (81 PS), and 13-inch wheels;
• G4M (1967–1968): 1,478 cc engine from the Moskvich-412, 68 kW (92 PS), later a twin-cam version with 74 kW (100 PS).

The G4 was criticised as heavy and less aerodynamic than Western cars of its class. It was still successful in national championships, and the old article counts three titles, three second places and two third places for this generation.

G5: the last Moskvich single-seaters (1968–1976)

The G5, developed by Gladilin and Shugurov from 1963 and built in 1968 from the parts of two G4Ms, moved the new five-speed gearbox behind the rear axle and used a new rear suspension. It was the first car from the Soviet Union with disc brakes on all four wheels. It weighed 580 kg and first raced in the national single-seater series in September 1968. With the 1972 engine, that gives about 159 kW per tonne by our calculation, compared with roughly 79 kW per tonne for the 660 kg G2 of 1956.

The old article gives a top speed of about 210 km/h. The G5M raced until 1976, and in 1983 both cars went to the factory museum. Despite a popular belief, the G5 was not built to enter international Formula One.

The GD-1 V8 project (1965–1967)

The factory did try to build an engine for international racing. The GD-1 was a 1.5-litre twin-cam V8, designed to the 1.5-litre Formula One rules of the time, with a target of 150 kW (200 hp) at 10,500 rpm. It used four twin-choke Weber 280DKB carburettors and weighed 148 kg; the old article says the design drew on cylinders from a racing motorcycle engine and was developed with a motorcycle design bureau.

The engine and a five-speed gearbox were built in 1965, and a fibreglass body was shaped in a wind tunnel. On the test bench the V8 reached 121 kW (162 hp) at 6,000 rpm, but the factory had no stand able to test it at high revs. Government funding stopped in 1965, the factory could not continue alone, and the project was abandoned in 1967. By then Formula One had moved to 3.0-litre engines. Only the GD-1's gearbox found its way into the G5.

Legacy and preservation: why Moskvich racers stayed at home

None of the Moskvich racing cars raced abroad, and they did not take part in the Friendship Cup series of the socialist countries. The sports department worked with production parts, small budgets and long approval chains, so its cars were always behind Western designs. Yet they mattered for the factory. The four-carburettor engines, the 408 and 412 tuning work and the disc brakes of the G5 were experiments that fed into production cars such as the Moskvich-407 and the Moskvich-412. Both road cars appear in the 1cars list of the best Soviet classic cars, where the 412 is singled out as the best to drive.

Of the racers themselves, little survives: the G1/G2 car was scrapped after 1963, while the two G5 cars were preserved in the factory museum from 1983. The tuned production models are the realistic choice for collectors today.

The last racing link came in the late 1980s, when AZLK worked with German partners on a Formula 3 car. It was shown under the name TARK-Aleko at the Essen motor show and later appeared in the 1989 entry lists without factory involvement. The wider story of the factory is in the history of Moskvich and AZLK, the base car of the first racers is the Moskvich-400, and more cars of the period are among the Soviet classics.

Timeline of Moskvich racing