GAZ-61

GAZ-61 in brief: a 4×4 saloon for remote roads

The plant designed the 61 as a car that could travel where ordinary passenger cars could not: on dirt roads, through mud and snow, and on steep tracks. It combined the body and comfort of a passenger car with the drivetrain of an off-roader. The main users were senior officials and commanders who needed a closed car able to reach remote places. The history of GAZ explains how the plant grew from licence-built Fords to its own designs, and all GAZ models are listed in the GAZ catalogue.

From the 1938 brief to the last cars of 1945

In the late 1930s several countries began to build passenger cars and light trucks with two driven axles. The engineers studied the American Marmon-Herrington conversion of the Ford V8. Their car followed the same principle: a proven passenger car with a driven front axle, a transfer case and a raised body. Grachev's design bureau wanted something simpler and more capable than the experimental three-axle 6×4 car it had built earlier.

The technical brief was issued in mid-1938, and design work on the "61" began that September, according to the old 1cars text. Most parts came from series production: the frame, body, brakes and electrical system from the GAZ-11-40 phaeton and the four-speed gearbox from the GAZ-MM truck. The front axle and the transfer case were new. The first prototype ran with an imported Dodge D5 six before the home-built version of that engine was ready. Testing ran through the summer and autumn of 1939, and the saloon reached 107.5 km/h with fuel use of about 14 l/100 km.

The car was shown at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1940 and entered small-scale production. The first batch was open phaetons. From 1941 GAZ built the GAZ-61-73, which used the closed all-metal body of the GAZ-11-73 saloon. Production continued in small batches until 1945, when the plant's capacity went to new models.

A tall Emka: frame, axles and cabin

The car looks like a tall Emka. The frame sits about 150 mm higher than on the road car, the wheels are larger and the tyres have an off-road tread. Ground clearance is 210 mm. Both axles are rigid and hang on leaf springs, and all four wheels have drum brakes. The steerable front axle was a new design for GAZ, and it used constant-velocity joints, first of the Rzeppa type and later Bendix-Weiss, as the old 1cars text records.

The cabin is plain. There is no heater, but the dashboard has an ashtray and a cigarette lighter, and the instruments add an oil pressure gauge to the usual Emka set because the engine works harder. The speedometer reads to 140 km/h. The gear lever is on the floor, and a second lever under the dashboard engages the front axle. The soft front and rear bench seats offer good head and leg room for the period.

The six-cylinder engine and four-wheel-drive layout

The engine is a side-valve inline six with a cast-iron block, based on a Dodge design. It displaces 3,485 cc with a bore of 82 mm and a stroke of 110 mm, and the compression ratio is 6.5:1. Sources give its output as 76 hp (56 kW) or 85 hp (63 kW), depending on the version and the year. The gearbox is a four-speed manual with a single dry-plate clutch, and a transfer case sends drive to the front axle.

Dimensions, weight and off-road figures

Period tests described in the old 1cars text also had the car towing a 700 kg trailer and crossing logs 37 cm thick. It drove through 40 cm of snow and even climbed the steps in the factory's grounds. At about 26 kg per kW by our calculation, it relied on low gearing rather than power. To compare its footprint with a modern SUV, use the size comparison tool.

Phaeton, saloon, pick-up and utility versions

Many of the first phaetons were later rebuilt with closed saloon bodies, which makes the exact count of each version hard to establish.

What the 61 led to at GAZ

The 61 proved that a passenger car with four-wheel drive could be practical. It gave the plant the experience it needed for its later light off-roaders: the GAZ-64, then the GAZ-67 and the post-war GAZ-69. The idea of a comfortable all-wheel-drive saloon returned at GAZ in 1955 with the M-72, built on the GAZ M20 Pobeda. Owners valued the strong body, the soft seats and the ability to reach places that no other car could. The weak points were the weight, the unassisted steering and brakes, the lack of a heater and the absence of a real boot.

Surviving cars and their provenance

Very few of these cars survive. At least one closed saloon is kept in a museum, and it was put on public display in 2014. Because so many cars were rebuilt or lost, any surviving example is a museum piece rather than a car that comes up for sale. Provenance and original components must be checked carefully on any car offered as a GAZ-61. For other Soviet cars of the period, see our selection of Soviet classics, or filter four-wheel-drive models by decade in the car finder.