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The GAZ M1 (“Эмка“/”Emka”) was a passenger car produced by the Russian automaker GAZ between 1936 and 1943, at their plant in Gorky in the former Soviet Union, present day Nizhny Novgorod (since 1990) in Russia. Systematic production ended in 1941, but the factory was able to continue assembling cars from existing inventory of parts and components until 1943. In total, 62,888 GAZ M1 automobiles were produced. Much of the car’s production period coincided with the Great Patriotic War (World War II), and many Emkas were used by the army as staff cars. Various special versions were produced such as the Gaz M - FAI and BA -20 armoured car models The car has subsequently become an icon of its time in Russia, having been relatively popular, and featuring in film and photographic images of a defining period in the history of the Soviet Union. ==Background== The Soviet Union’s first passenger car had been the GAZ-A, produced between 1932 and 1936, and based on the Ford Model A (1927–31), built under license/technology sharing agreement with and using parts purchased from the American Ford Motor Company. It would be many years before passenger cars became available for private buyers in the Soviet Union, and passenger cars at this stage were produced for official and military use. By the time the GAZ-A was being produced in the Soviet Union, the western original Ford Model A was already becoming superseded in its western markets, and the politicians and Red army looked for a way to reduce dependence on imported components and replacement parts. The version of the Ford adapted for Soviet production was an open topped car which was unsuitable for the winter climate encountered in most of the country, and the cars were felt to be unreliable and insufficiently robust for the relatively harsh Russian conditions. There had therefore been various attempts to modify the GAZ-A using locally designed elements, but the body structures in question had used traditional timber frames with panels attached, which were labour-intensive to produce and excessively prone to deform. In the US car body construction was changing radically during the later 1920s, using technology pioneered by Ambi Budd, for the production of all steel car bodies. The new approach used far more complicated steel pressings than had hitherto been possible, and the same new techniques were adopted by the more prosperous of the volume auto-makers in the west of Europe through the 1930s. GAZ’s western technology partner, Ford, took a conservative approach to these developments, but during the early 1930s they, too, would join in the switch to all-steel car bodies. The Soviet Union was keen for the same technology to be applied at the GAZ plant in Gorky, exploiting the ten-year technology sharing agreement which had been signed with the Ford Motor Company in 1932, and which at this stage remained more or less intact. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「GAZ-M1」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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