GAZ-18

The GAZ-18 was a Soviet two-seat car of the extra-small class, developed at the Gorky Automobile Plant between 1955 and 1958 under the direction of Nikolai Yushmanov on the instruction of the Ministry of the Automobile Industry. It was intended for drivers with disabilities, as the factory team's answer to the invalid motor carriages then being built. A rear-mounted, liquid-cooled two-cylinder petrol engine of 620 cubic centimetres and 18 horsepower, a Moskvich-402 unit shortened by two cylinders, drove the rear wheels through a three-speed automatic transmission based on the torque converter of the GAZ-21, one of the first uses anywhere of such a gearbox with so small an engine. The suspension was independent, on torsion bars of the factory's own design, and the brakes were hydraulic drums. Only two prototypes were built. Production never began, because GAZ was already overloaded with other models and the Serpukhov motorcycle plant that built the S-3L invalid carriage could not master a car needing higher standards of manufacture, and in 1958 the ministry ordered the work stopped. One prototype went to Serpukhov for study and is now in the GAZ museum.