If you’re into cars and you amass an extensive collection of interesting vehicular contraptions, like Jay Leno has, you are bound to get some really unique stuff, which one wouldn’t even dream of seeing in the US.
Perhaps dream of seeing is pushing it a bit, because I don’t necessarily mean it in an overly-positive way – cars like Leno’s Volga GAZ-21 are not great by any means, but they are extremely rare Stateside and still highly interesting wherever your automotive loyalty may lie.
The car itself is a 1966 model, and while it was smaller than the ZIL, which was the big limo-type vehicle, it was still built with KGB agents and medium-importance party members in mind – yes, differentiation or class distinction through the car one drove was one of the ways the USSR worked. As Leno says, it’s not really a bad car, and he admits it feels a bit like a more rudimentary Volvo of the era.
It had a four-pot engine, with around 95 hp, a three-speed column-shift gearbox and a system to close up the radiator at the front, in order to preserve heat on the coldest of Russian mornings.
Do check out the video posted below, and watch Leno talk for 12 minutes about a car he knows really nothing about – it does arouse his interest, as it did ours; again, not because it was good or really relevant in any way, but because you didn’t know about it, and now you do.
Sorry, no burnout at the end this time…
By Andrei Nedelea
VIDEO