GAZ-GL-1

The GAZ-GL-1 was the first Soviet racing car built by a car factory, produced at the Gorky Automobile Plant in probably no more than two examples. It was designed in 1938 by a group under Evgeny Agitov on the basis of the production GAZ-M-1, and was nicknamed Lipgart's racer after the plant's chief designer Andrei Lipgart. The first car had an open streamlined two-seat body on the standard M-1 frame and an engine tuned from 50 to 65 horsepower, and test driver Arkady Nikolaev took it to about 147 kilometres per hour. A second version of 1940 used the six-cylinder 3.4 litre engine of the GAZ-11-73, tuned to 100 horsepower, with a closed streamlined cabin, and on 22 September 1940 Nikolaev set an absolute Soviet speed record of 161.87 kilometres per hour. A third version was abandoned when the war began and every original car was lost; a replica built between 2006 and 2010 is displayed in a Moscow museum.