MAZ-525

The MAZ-525 was a Soviet heavy truck built by the Minsk Automobile Plant. Its design began in 1949 at the Yaroslavl Automobile Plant design bureau as the YaAZ-225, with a cab from the YaAZ-200 planned, set offset to the left. The technical documentation then passed to MAZ, which substantially reworked the design. The cab styling changed slightly during production: on early trucks the bonnet was as wide as the cab, later it became much narrower, and the guards fitted to the bonnet sides to protect staff while the engine was serviced were eventually removed. Variants included the 1952 MAZ-E-525D, made to work with a tractor-scraper, a trolley dump truck with two trolleybus electric motors developed in 1954, and the MAZ-541 aircraft tug of 1959, of which three were built. In 1959 production moved to the Belarusian Automobile Plant, where it continued until 1965 as the BelAZ-525, and the truck stayed in use until the early 1970s.