The domestic automotive industry could have been much more diverse if many interesting developments by engineers had been given the green light for production. In the USSR and modern Russia, many prototypes were created, fully ready for mass production, but remained as single copies. Let's consider some of these cars that could have changed the history of our automotive industry.
GAZ-31022 "Volga LX"
For many years, the Gorky Automobile Plant produced station wagons that were in steady demand. However, the design of the rear of the body remained practically unchanged from the GAZ-24-02 "Volga" model. The plant only updated the front and interior in accordance with current sedans, without seriously restyling the station wagons.
In the early 2000s, the "Autodesign" company from Naberezhnye Chelny took on this task. After a significant amount of work, the updated "Volga LX" station wagon was presented to the public. There is different information about the base for this model - some sources indicate the GAZ-3110 sedan, others the GAZ-31022 station wagon. Judging by the window frames of the rear doors, it is most likely that the sedan was taken as the basis.
The central part of the car remained unchanged - the same doors with handles and windshield. The main transformations concerned the front and rear. The "front end" received a completely new design with lens headlights, reminiscent of the Opel Vectra C of that period. The radiator grille became a separate element from the hood.
Original front fenders were developed for the model, echoing the design of the doors. The hood received an expressive relief with a central stamping and side lines extending from the headlights. The front bumper was equipped with lens fog lights, and all the details were perfectly fitted with minimal gaps.
The rear underwent even more radical changes. The side windows were inclined to match the lines of the rear doors and trunk lid. Standard roof rails appeared on the roof. The most important improvement was a new, wider trunk lid with a lower loading height compared to the production station wagon. The taillights from the GAZ-3110 were successfully integrated into the rear design. The rear bumper was designed to organically wrap around the trunk lid.
The "Volga LX" was presented to the public in 2003 and received positive feedback at exhibitions and in the press. The Gorky Automobile Plant initially considered the possibility of mass production, but eventually abandoned this idea, considering the modernization too expensive and unprofitable. Nevertheless, the concept of restyling the station wagon itself was not completely rejected, and in 2004 the plant released the GAZ-310221 model with an updated front and interior, but with the same rear from the GAZ-24-02.
Moskvich-2139 "Arbat"
A minivan is a passenger car that combines the features of a station wagon and a minibus, usually with a one-volume body, where the hood, interior, and trunk are combined into a single space. In the domestic automotive industry, there were practically no production minivans, except for the unsuccessful VAZ-2120 "Nadezhda" model, which failed to gain wide popularity due to design flaws, although it had its advantages in the form of a spacious interior and all-wheel drive.
In the USSR, the development of cars with a minivan body began in the 1940s, but this direction began to actively develop in the 1980s, when this type of body gained worldwide popularity. Soviet engineers, inspired by the French Renault Espace, began to create their own minivan, which in the domestic classification was called a "high-capacity station wagon".
The prototype Moskvich-2139 "Arbat" was created in 1987 and was in many ways ahead of its time. The development was primarily carried out by specialists from the Bureau of Artistic Design of AZLK, which emphasized the importance of the design component of the project.
Although this ambitious idea was never realized in mass production, the remaining prototype demonstrates the potential of the domestic automotive industry of that period and what interesting models could have appeared on our roads, if not for the limitations of the planned economy and the subsequent crisis of the automotive industry in the 1990s.
Such examples show that domestic engineers and designers have always strived to create modern and competitive cars that meet global trends. Unfortunately, many of these projects remained only in single copies, stored in factory museums or in photographs in specialized publications.
It is difficult to say whether new original models are being developed today, or whether the domestic automotive industry has decided to focus on cooperation with Chinese manufacturers. However, history shows that the potential for creating unique and popular cars in Russia has always existed.