GAZ-A-Aero

GAZ-A-Aero was an experimental streamlined passenger car created in 1934 on a GAZ-A chassis by the designer Aleksei Osipovich Nikitin, as the practical result of his research into the aerodynamics of road vehicles. The project was started by the automobile department of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army, and wind tunnel work produced four candidate body shapes. The body used a wooden frame covered in curved steel sheet, a V-shaped windscreen, half-recessed headlamps and fully enclosed rear wheels, and it dispensed with running boards, bumpers and an outside spare wheel. Its engine was tuned to 48 horsepower and it reached 106 kilometres per hour, against 90 for the ordinary GAZ-A. Only one example was built, painted light blue, and it is remembered as the first Soviet streamlined car.