KIM-10
| KIM-10 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | KIM |
| Production | 1940—1941 |
| Body and chassis | |
| Class | Compact car |
| Body style | |
| Layout | FR layout |
| Powertrain | |
| Engine | 4-cyl., 4-stroke, 1170 cc, 30 hp |
| Transmission | 3-speed manual |
| Dimensions | |
| Wheelbase | 2,386 mm (93.9 in) |
| Length | 3,940 mm (155.1 in) |
| Width | 1,430 mm (56.3 in) |
| Height | 1,630 mm (64.2 in) |
| Curb weight | 840 kg (1,852 lb) |
| Chronology | |
| Predecessor |
NAMI-1 Ford Model A |
| Successor | Moskvitch 400 |
KIM-10 was the first Soviet small car designed for large-scale mass production.
The very first passenger car designed in the Soviet Union, the NAMI-1, was supposed to combine the simplicity, light weight and low cost of a cyclecar with the passenger capacity and comfort of a small car. It was considered quite a success from the engineering point and deemed very suitable for the country's still primitive road system. However, the project ultimately turned into a failure due to very limited experience in car building and lack of a modern industrial base. The Moscow State Automobile Plant No. 4 (also known as the "Avtomotor" plant; later renamed "Spartak"), assisted by the AMO and several other plants, managed to assemble only several hundred cars in 1927-31 (exact numbers vary considerably depending on the source). Old-fashioned production techniques and low scale resulted in mediocre build quality and high retail price – several times that of a locally assembled Ford Model A.
However, another automotive manufacturing project of late 1920s & early 30s – the GAZ plant, built with the assistance of Ford Motor Company – proved to be a success, with a designed capacity to produce up to 250...300 thousand cars and trucks annually. The use of a readily available foreign technology allowed Russia to become a large-scale manufacturer of cars for the first time in its history. However, Ford cars were relatively large and heavy, and, while mass production made them relatively cheap, they still required a considerable amount of resources to build and maintain. It was considered uneconomical to sell such vehicles to private owners in any significant quantities, and the demand for a private car was indeed very low to nonexistent at the time. The NAMI continued to work on lighter, smaller cars based on the NAMI-1 design, which could compliment the GAZ cars as a cheaper alternative, but with little success.
The situation changed considerably by the end of 1930s, when USSR's rapidly growing industrial economy provided both the demand for a private owned small car and the means to produce it.
In December, 1930 the Moscow State Automotive Assembly Plant No. 2, which had started assembling Ford cars and trucks from CKD kits earlier that year, was named after the Young Communist International organization (Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional Molodyozhi – KIM). In 1939 it was reorganized as a full-cycle car manufacturing plant and renamed accordingly.
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Wikipedia