GAZ-44

The GAZ-44 was a Soviet one-and-a-half tonne class truck of the Gorky Automobile Plant that ran on compressed natural gas. It was a modernised variant of the GAZ-MM lorry and the first Soviet series-built gas-cylinder vehicle. Natural gas compressed to 200 atmospheres was stored in six cylinders of 65 kg each under the cargo platform. The gas equipment made the truck about 420 kg heavier than the base model, the payload fell by the same amount, to a stated 1.1 tonnes, and engine power fell by 16 percent. It was built in 1939, issued in a small industrial batch and used in several Soviet cities. The same designation was later given to an unrelated army amphibious truck of the 1970s.