Sovestky motorsport - ZIS 112 (5 photos)

The centralized economy presupposes a lack of competition between producers in general and cars in particular. However, the theory of Marxism-Leninism - is one thing and practice - is quite another. And in sports - even more so. Plant named after Stalin himself could not help but respond to the emergence of gas a C1 (Victory-Sport) his sports car. So in 1951 there was ZIS-112.



Fortunately, the plant was still a person with experience in building sports cars on the chassis of a limousine, one of those who built the ZIS-101-Sport in 1939 - Valentin shoots. It was he who developed the design and the overall layout of the new sports car on the chassis of the ZIS-110.



The design of the car was really avant-garde - in the best traditions of dream-cars («dream-car» - so in the middle of the twentieth century was called concept cars): a huge, almost six-meter triple with round grille and headlamp only. At the plant the car was called "Cyclops" or "One-eye." By the way, at the ZIS-112 and appeared for the first time a combination of white and blue later became traditional for the factory team.

Initially, the car set the serial 140 hp engine ZIS-110. But for sports car weighing almost two and a half tons (2450 kg), he was, to put it mildly, weak, and in the same year, the ZIS-112 was installed an experimental engine, developed by Vasiliy Fedorovich Rodionov. The new eight-cylinder engine capacity of 6005 cm. Cube. with top inlet and bottom outlet valves, allowing to keep the old cylinder head, but with the increase in the diameter of the intake valves, with two carburetors MKZ-LZ, developed capacity of 182 hp at 3500 rev. / min. Also provided are: an oil radiator and two oil pumps, manual control of ignition timing. Maximum speed was ... 204 km / h!



However, there remained a number of unresolved issues. In the first place - the engine. As with the ZIS-101 Sport, eight-unit ZIS-112 was in-line ...! And so terribly long. The weight distribution of the car was far from ideal, sports car turned, said to the designer, "tadpole" - that is with a very heavy front end, which contributed to the breakdown in the bank.

ZIS-112 came out at the start line on race Minsk highway, but soon the riders and designers was clear: this car, even for such competitions is not suitable.



In 1954, the base of the car has been reduced by 600 mm (from 3760 to 3160 mm), and the total length decreased from 5920 to 5320 mm. The changes were made and the power unit: a compression ratio increased from 7, 1 to 8, 7 units, there were two carburetor, which helped lift has 192 hp at 3800 rev. / min. Top speed increased to 210 km / h - an unprecedented figure for domestic sports car! The last problem was a sleek cap - thermal motor voltage was such that in the cockpit could not breathe!

Season 1955 showed complete failure, and this version. USSR Championships have started on the ring road in Minsk. The ring, however, was very peculiar: two highways together the cross roads, creating a range of 42 km in length - almost the longest "circuit" in the world! Nevertheless, here we required more maneuverability than on the slopes of linear races and maneuverability at the ZIS-112 still had problems. It is time to other competitions and other vehicles, and the Soviet dream-car ended his life on the margins of the factory.