In the sixties in the USSR, a need arose to service trade and service enterprises - post offices, catering establishments, consumer services and other sectors of the economy engaged in the transportation of low-tonnage and small loads.
The use of trucks like the GAZ-51 for this purpose brought enormous losses to the country's economy, because often for the sake of several hundred kilograms or a small-sized cargo, tens of liters of state fuel had to be spent.
And even though gasoline in the USSR literally cost a penny, across the country there was a large overspending of fuel that was used irrationally. And, as you know, the ruble saves a penny.
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State approach
The issue was decided at the level of the country's top leadership - that is, the Council of Ministers. Thanks to the calculations of economists, it became obvious to members of the government that the national economy of the early sixties badly needed its own car - no longer an ordinary passenger car, but not yet a large truck. At that time, Riga was already producing the RAF-977 minibus, in which the officials saw the future van.
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Indeed, the passenger minibus produced on the Volga M-21 units and assemblies was the best suited for the role of a delivery van. It was enough just not to "glass" the passenger compartment and not to put the seats, and inside there was enough space for about a ton of cargo. What, in fact, was required to achieve.
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It is important that this approach did not require the development of a new car, which, in turn, also saved not only time, but also money.
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| Prototype RAF-977K | ||
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Already in 1962, on the basis of an ordinary RAF minibus, a prototype of the RAF-977K cargo van was manufactured according to the unpretentious scheme described above. The car was recognized as suitable for operation as a delivery van, but ...
At the RAF itself, they did not have production facilities that would allow the production of such cars in the required quantities.
From Latvia to Armenia
An unexpected solution was found: at the very end of 1964, the Council of Ministers of the Armenian USSR adopted a decision "On organizing a plant for the production of vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-1.0 tons in the buildings under construction of the Avtogruzchik plant in Yerevan."
It is clear that no one in the Armenian ministry would have issued such an order just like that, without a corresponding directive "from the very top." By another decree # 795, the same ASSR Council of Ministers renames the Avtogruzchik plant into the Yerevan Automobile Plant (abbreviated as YerAZ). At that time, the construction of a forklift plant was at that early stage when the change in the profile and specialization of production did not really affect anything.
The employees of the newly formed enterprise were trained at the RAF and UAZ, and after the production building was built and the machines were mounted, in Yerevan they began to produce ... the very RAF-977K, called ErAZ-762. After all, earlier Riga bus manufacturers handed over to YerAZ specialists all the technical documentation for the production of this model, moreover, it was a cargo van, and not a passenger minibus.
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For the May Day demonstration in 1966, the employees of the Yerevan enterprise drove out on brand new vans of their own production. So the Riga car received an "Armenian registration", and in the small mountainous republic, its own automobile industry appeared.
It should be noted that by that time the shortcomings of the RAF-977D minibus had long been known to both factory specialists and ordinary users of "rafiks".
Alas, the single-volume car built on the units of the Volga passenger car did not have the most successful weight distribution, since the front axle of the cabover-type vehicle was heavily loaded. In addition, the actual operation of the machines also revealed the insufficient rigidity of the body, which, under active loads, simply began to collapse.
To somehow rectify the situation, the designers have undertaken a number of improvements. So, inside the body, the cargo compartment and the passenger cabin were separated by a strong metal partition, which also played the role of a kind of amplifier that increased the torsional rigidity of the body. For the same purpose, a pair of single-leaf doors were provided for access to the cargo compartment - on the right side of the body and in the rear.
The floor and sides were reinforced with special wooden slats, and for the convenience of loading and unloading luggage at any time of the day, two lampshades were provided in the cargo compartment, which were turned on both automatically (when the doors were opened) and using a toggle switch. In addition, slots for exhaust ventilation were provided on the walls of the sidewalls - after all, as you know, loads can be very different.
Tests carried out in Latvia have shown the professional suitability of a vehicle with a carrying capacity of about 850 kg.
Yes, it was not possible to reach a ton in the process of transforming the minibus into a van, but it was not possible to squeeze out the larger of the Volgov units and the supporting body. However, such an indicator for the car, based on the specifics of its future work, was quite enough. It is important that the control consumption of gasoline in comparison with a full-size truck turned out to be half as much, and the Ulyanovsk cabotniks could not boast of fuel efficiency at the level of a Riga van.
Modernization and production growth
The first consignment of 66 copies of YerAZ-762 was manufactured in December 1966, and in the first two years of YerAZ's activity, under the leadership of Zaven Simonyan, head of the machine-building department of the Economic Council of the Economic Council of the ASSR, it was possible not only to create production capacities for the production of 2500 cars per year, but also to reach the level of 1000 manufactured vans per year.
Further - more: under the leadership of Stepan Ivanyan, who headed YerAZ from 1968 to 1973, production capacity increased significantly - after the first reconstruction, 6,500 YerAZs were assembled per year. This is largely due to the launch of a new building with an area of \u200b\u200b26 thousand square meters. m and the completion of the construction of a press-body production, which made it possible to dramatically increase the volume of the plant's products. After all, now absolutely all body panels were produced in Yerevan, and not brought from the RAF, as it was before.
Before the first reconstruction was completed, the enterprise started the second stage in order to double the production capacity - that is, up to 13,000 vehicles.
It is interesting that in the mid-seventies, ErAZ became the second enterprise in the USSR, which started the assembly pusher-overhead conveyor. The first plant with such a conveyor was, of course, VAZ. This technology for the Volga Automobile Plant was developed, delivered and installed by the Italian partner Fiat, but in the case of ErAZ, they did it on their own - the conveyor was made by Minsk SKB-3.
The launch of a new assembly line and a press shop with a German press with an effort of 500 tons influenced the structure of the Yerevan plant: in 1976, the YerAZ production association was created, which included both an automobile plant as the head enterprise and factories for the production of forklifts and hydraulic equipment. and auto parts.
A characteristic feature of the activity of the Yerevan automobile plant is constant modernization and growth of production volumes. At the beginning of the eighties, up to 12,000 vans a year were assembled at YerAZ, due to which in April 1983 the one hundred thousandth YerAZ-762 was produced.
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The installation of new lines and the next reconstruction of the body production and the press shop made it possible by the middle of the eighties to increase the volume of production of cars to 16,000 units.
Stamping games
And what about the minibus itself? The ErAZ-762, after a number of minor upgrades, was produced for exactly three decades - until 1966. During this time, the car became infinitely outdated, but in the eighties it was still in demand in the USSR as a utilitarian delivery van.
Cars of the first years of production, produced before 1971, could be distinguished by the smooth sides of the sides. There was also a version with an isothermal body, which received the 762I index and was produced in small batches, while the 762P refrigerator developed a year later remained a prototype.
The modernization of the body and press production did not fail to affect the appearance of the car, which received stamping in the form of false windows on the body sidewalls for greater rigidity. This modification was indexed 762A.
In 1971, both the first and second modifications were even awarded a couple of awards - an Honorary Diploma of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce at the Moscow International Exhibition "Intorgmash" and a third-degree VDNKh diploma.
The next update affected not only the body, where a couple of new bulges appeared: since 1976, the ErAZs with the designation 762B were transferred to the units of the more modern Volga GAZ-24, since the former "donor" GAZ M-21 was discontinued back in 1970.
In 1979, the YerAZ trucks began to install the engine from the modification for the GAZ-24-01 taxi, which ran on A-76 gasoline. Moreover, in the Union at the enterprises-owners everywhere they used just such fuel, and not "ninety-third". ERAZ-762V also received concave lines on the sidewalls of the body and differed from earlier versions by the presence of reversing lights.
In 1988 YerAZ "remembered the minibus roots" of its own car: production of a five-seater cargo-passenger van with a VGP index with a carrying capacity of 575 kg began in Yerevan. Due to its versatility, at the end of the eighties, this machine was in good demand among cooperators and the so-called "shop workers".
Alas, the collapse of the USSR put an end to the fate of YerAZ: inflation, social turmoil, the rupture of economic ties of the former Soviet republics and the loss of a huge market with a solvent customer represented by a huge state led to the fact that less and less YerAZ trucks were produced - production volumes dropped to half a thousand copies per year.
In 1992, however, the management of the enterprise and the enthusiasts working on it tried to somehow save the situation with the help of a five-seat YerAZ-762VDP pickup truck, but the aging car, like the enterprise that produced it, was simply doomed in the new economic conditions. Neither attempts to modernize the appearance of the car with the help of plastic trim, nor the barter supply schemes, which the Armenian enterprise constantly resorted to in the first half of the nineties, in order to survive and stay afloat, did not help.
It's hard to believe, but in neighboring Ukraine, a couple of dozen ErAZ-762s are still offered on the Internet! The owners want about 650-800 dollars for the cars that are badly beaten by life and mercilessly "crammed", that is, about 50,000 rubles 1 / 3
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In 1995, the old-fashioned YerAZ was finally discontinued, and the Yerevan Automobile Plant itself, before it finally went bankrupt in 2002, produced the successor to the 762 with the 3730 index for several years in small batches. But this is a completely different story that deserves a separate story.
.Like most Soviet car factories Yerevan Automobile Plant was created in the mid-1960s. On December 31, 1964, by order of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR, a decision was made "On the organization of a plant for the production of vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-1.0 tons in the buildings under construction of the" Auto-loader "plant in Yerevan.
In the early 1980s, YerAZ could become one of the manufacturers of electric vehicles. In 1980, work began here on the creation of electric vehicles. The same developments were carried out at RAF, GAZ, UAZ and VAZ, but it was the Armenian version, created on the basis of the ErAZ-3730 model, that was recognized as the most convenient electric car (due to the large body volume). But for a number of reasons, the main of which was the imperfection of power supplies, work in this area at YerAZ was stopped.
The history of the creation of the ERAZ plant
The history of the Yerevan Automobile Plant began on December 31, 1964, when by order of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR, a decision was made "On the organization of a plant for the production of vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-1.0 tons in the buildings under construction of the Avtogruzchik plant in Yerevan." ... During 1965, the first core of the team was created and 66 people were trained at the Riga and Ulyanovsk automotive enterprises.
The first production building was built, the first machines were installed, the first parts were processed. On September 10, 1965, by order of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR N795, the plant of forklifts under construction was named Yerevan Automobile Plant - YerAZ. The first director of the plant from 1966 to 1968. Zaven Abramovich Simonyan was appointed. On May 1, 1966, employees of the plant went to the May Day parade in cars assembled with their own hands. In 1971, the plant's designers began to create a new generation van of the ErAZ-3730 model. In 1972, the construction of the second press-forging production building continued at an accelerated pace. Immediately after the completion of the first reconstruction, the second begins - to create capacities for the production of 12,000 units. cars per year. 1972-75 An assembly overhead-pushing conveyor (developed by Minsk SKB-3), the second in the USSR, is being installed. The first conveyor of this type in the USSR was designed, manufactured and installed by the Italian firm Fiat at the Volga Automobile Plant in Togliatti. In 1976, the main assembly line was launched at the plant and the first German press with a capacity of 500 tons was installed in a new press shop. The production association "YerAZ" is created, which includes: Yerevan Automobile Plant - the parent enterprise; Yerevan plant of spare parts; Yerevan Forklift Plant; Yerevan Hydroequipment Plant; a forklift plant under construction in Charentsavan. The task of the merger is, along with the production of YerAZ vehicles and 4022 auto-loaders, to master the production of 4091 auto-loaders with a lifting capacity of 1 ton and a 2-ton model, developed by the Lviv State Design Bureau “Avtopruzchik”. In 1980, 10 auto-refrigerators based on the ErAZ-3730 model were manufactured to service the Moscow-80 Summer Olympics.
Along with the RAF, UAZ, VAZ, work on the creation of electric vehicles was started at ErAZ, 26 samples were made and sent for testing to the Moscow Automobile Plant. Due to the large volume of the body, the ErAZ-3730 was recognized as the most convenient for cars in operation. But due to the imperfection of the power supplies, the work on the ErAZ was stopped. An international symposium was held in Armenia with the participation of prominent specialists from the USSR and the USA, in which specialists from ErAZ also took part. In April 1982, the 100,000th "YerAZ" leaves the main assembly line! In November 1983. the YerAZ association is re-registered as the Charentsavan production association ArmAvto, and Vladimir Galustovich Nersesyan is appointed director of the Yerevan Automobile Plant. In May 1984. ErAZ becomes an independent enterprise. In 1984-1987. the body assembly and welding workshop is being reconstructed. Welding lines for the YerAZ-3730 car body and a system of overhead pushing conveyors with a total length of up to 3.5 km are being installed. The reconstruction of the press shop is nearing completion. In 1984, a cooperation agreement was signed with the Zhuk automobile plant (Poland). In 1986, the ErAZ-37301 van with an insulated body, manufactured on the basis of the ErAZ-3730 van, was demonstrated for the first time in the history of the plant at an international exhibition abroad in Poznan, Poland. A new administrative building is being commissioned. The modernization of the new model is in progress. On its basis, new modifications are created, the first samples are made. In 1992, on the basis of the serially produced YerAZ-762V car, new modifications were created and produced: YerAZ-762 VGP (cargo-passenger), YerAZ-762 VDP (double-pickup) and a trailer for passenger cars. 1995 - YerAZ automobile plant was privatized and reorganized into "YerAZ" open joint stock company.
Hovsep Seferyan, an entrepreneur and owner of a large number of shares, was elected as the chairman of the board of shareholders of YerAZ OJSC, and Hamlet Harutyunyan was elected as the executive director. car models of the "Moskvich" brand, which were in demand not only in Armenia, but throughout the entire Caucasian region. November 2004 - YerAZ OJSC was sold at an auction. Mik metal became the new owner of the former YerAZ automobile plant and then YerAZ OJSC.
Let's see what happened to the automobile factories that produced equipment during the Soviet era.
Yerevan Automobile Plant
On December 31, 1964, by order of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR No. 1084, the Decision was adopted "On the organization in the city of Yerevan in the buildings under construction of the" Auto-loader "plant of a plant for the production of vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-1.0 tons. It was there that the charming YerAZ vans, brothers of the Latvian Rafiks, were created.
In November 2002, the plant was declared bankrupt, and two years later its premises were sold at an auction. The new owner is the Mik Metal company, which produces fittings, nails and other metal products. This is how the plant looks today.
Riga Automobile Factory
Well, the RAFs themselves began to be produced in 1953 on the basis of the Riga Automobile Factory, which was built in 1949 on the site of the "Riga Automobile Repair Plant No. 2". Until 1954, the plant was named RZAK - Riga Bus Body Plant. Its brightest years fell on the 50-70s, but after Latvia left the USSR, the plant began to perish.
The enterprise was declared bankrupt in 1998 and now the plant's areas have been partially looted and destroyed, and partially given over to warehouse and office premises. Ironically, the plant's last cars were built for funeral services.
Kutaisi Automobile Plant
Even though the name "Kolkhida" became in the Soviet Union a synonym for an unreliable truck, cars under this brand were produced until 1993. Later, attempts were made to revive production with agreements with GM, Mahindra, KhTZ, but they did not lead to anything concrete. As a result, the plant, which was built in 1951, has been idle since 2010. Most of his equipment was looted and cut into metal, only the administrative building remained in a "live" state, which is guarded (pictured).
Vilnius vehicle factory
The forge of the fastest rally cars of the Soviet Union, located in Vilnius, was created in the late 70s on the basis of the Vilnius Automobile Plant. The new enterprise was named Vilnius Vehicle Factory (VFTS) and existed for a long time even after the USSR became history, switching to the construction of rally cars according to individual projects.
Now the territory where the VFTS was located is occupied by a Volkswagen service station, and little reminds of the former rally greatness.
Lviv Bus Plant
The last big order of the Lviv Bus Plant, which has produced many magnificent cars since its construction in 1945, was the delivery of a batch of buses and trolleybuses to the cities of Ukraine that hosted the Euro 2012 football championship. Today the plant is a huge empty space, from which almost all the equipment for assembly was removed.
Russo-Balt
The automotive department on the basis of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works appeared in 1908, however, during the First World War, the enterprise "dispersed" to other parts of Russia in order to evacuate. In their native walls, cars were produced not so long - only seven years. And on July 1, 1917, the Second Automobile Plant Russo-Balt began to work. Now the plant in Riga looks like this. And even though his condition seems decrepit, the former greatness is still felt within these walls.
Dux
The Dux plant, which turns 124 this year, began its history with the production of bicycles, but soon expanded production to cars and aircraft. The first "dead loop" performed by Nesterov was performed on the Dux aircraft. Now on the territory of the complex of the plant, which was returned to the historical name "Dux" in 1993, they produce weapons for air-to-air aircraft.
Part of the buildings of the complex at the address: Moscow, Pravdy Street 8 has been transferred to office premises and trading floors.
Likhachev plant
Muscovites know perfectly well what happened to ZiL. One of the oldest car factories in the country, founded in 1916, under the influence of urban processes turned out to be unnecessary to anyone. As a result, the factory premises were razed to the ground and in its place the Zilart residential complex is being built, next to which the Zil park will appear in the fall.
The highlight of this park will be a conveyor-shaped terrace - as a tribute to the historical past.
Moskvich
The construction of the plant at the intersection of the current Small Ring of the Moscow Railway and Volgogradsky Prospekt began in 1929, and already in 1930 the enterprise began its activities. The dawn of the plant, later named "Moskvich", fell on the post-war years. But by the beginning of Perestroika, clouds began to gather over Moskvich, in 2001 production was stopped, and in 2010 the bankruptcy procedure of the enterprise was completed.
One of the workshops of the plant, in which it was planned to assemble the engines, now belongs to Renault Russia. On the territory of another, the Radius Group planned to open a cryptocurrency mining farm.
Yaroslavl Automobile Plant
101 years ago, Vladimir Lebedev began producing Crossley cars in Russia - under license. This laid the foundation for the plant, which is now known as the Yaroslavl Motor Plant. Where copies of British cars were assembled a century ago, diesel engines are now being made.
In the interval between these eras, the enterprise assembled a variety of automotive equipment, including trucks of the Y series and YATB trolleybuses.
The plant was built to increase the production of delivery vans and RAF-977 minibuses. The documentation was transferred from Riga to Yerevan, and in 1966 the first ErAZ-762s were assembled, which outwardly did not differ from the "rafiks".
While the RAF already in the mid-70s switched to the more modern model RAF-2203 "Latvia", at ErAZ archaic buses with rounded shapes continued to be built right up to 1996! So, almost all such cars that can still be found on Russian roads are precisely Yerevan, not Riga products, although the Yerevan plant ended its existence in 2002.
But, of course, there was a design department at YerAZ, which was engaged in new developments, albeit not always successful.
1966, ErAZ-762. The first version of a delivery van, still without side stiffeners. It was produced from 1966 to 1976 under the RAF documentation.
1971, ErAZ-762R. Refrigerated van based on the modified ErAZ-762A. These machines had almost no external differences from the 762.
1976, ErAZ-762B. In the new version of the van, there are ribs and "relief" of the body. The car was produced from 1976 to 1981, when it was replaced by another modification.
1981, ErAZ-762V. The most massive version of the van received a new form of stiffening ribs and a number of modifications to the chassis, as well as the replacement of some units. It is these ErAZs that have basically survived to this day.
1988, ErAZ-762VGP. A van-based passenger bus that appeared in the late 1980s. The "facelift" is also clearly visible (the picture shows a modification of the mid-90s).
ErAZ-762G. Cargo version with a wooden body.
1972, ErAZ-762P. Recreational vehicle tractor.
1992, ErAZ-762VDP. The five-seater cargo-passenger pickup appeared in the early 90s, when the plant, which was in an extremely difficult economic situation, needed to somehow "spin".
1968, ErAZ-773. In fact, they began to look for a replacement for the 762 back in the late 60s. One of the most popular models was the 773rd.
1970, ErAZ-763 "Armenia". The 763 won the fight for the right to be next, and in the 70th year a full-size prototype was built. This car hit the conveyor with a huge delay - 15 years later, although initially it was even more perfect than the RAFs.
1974, electric car ErAZ-3731. The first batch of 26 Kapotnikovs. Unfortunately, until 1985, YerAZ hoods were produced in extremely small batches for the needs of specific enterprises.
In addition, the company from Yerevan was "tied" to suppliers and subcontractors - both the manufacturer of body panels from Latvia and the Gorky Automobile Plant. As a result, many situational "buts" did not allow the enterprise management to reach the planned production volumes. And on the whole, the attitude of the Minavtoprom to YerAZ, as well as to many other similar "hard" plants, was peculiar - funding and support were carried out on a leftover basis. Let's not forget that at the end of the same sixties, a huge auto giant was launched in the USSR in Togliatti, where almost all the forces and money of the industry were thrown. This dealt a noticeable blow to both the rest of the leading enterprises in the automotive industry. What can we say about such a "pot-bellied little thing" like factories producing 5-6 thousand cars a year! On the scale of a huge country - sheer crumbs.
Based on the already abundant operational experience of the ErAZ-762 and the current situation with production, it became obvious to the management, who are not indifferent to the fate of their native plant, that first they need to get rid of dependence on the supply of components, and only then proceed to the development and implementation of a new model. Alas, after the pressing and stamping production in Yerevan finally reached the required capacity, a directive was issued “from above” - to stamp parts for RAFs in Armenia! This again increased the load on the plant and prevented it from going further.
The pride of the nation
Nevertheless, at YerAZ they did not sit idly by. After all, initially a team of enthusiasts was formed there, for whom car production in Armenia was not just a functional duty, but a matter of life and honor, a task associated with personal ambitions and even national pride. That is why at YerAZ from the very beginning they worked according to the principle of “we will do it as best as possible”, and not “how it will turn out”. Restrictions on the part of the relevant ministry in a certain way tied hands only to production workers and technologists, but not to design engineers, for whom the production of only "Armenian" Rafik "without windows and seats" was clearly not enough.
The department of the Chief Designer (OGK) was formally supposed to be engaged in the improvement of that very ErAZ-762, which the specialists of the enterprise did carefully and responsibly. After all, with the release of each new "letter" modification (ErAZ-762A, -762B, -762V) the car became stronger, more durable and even more attractive in appearance. But at the same time, the designers made dozens of generally invisible from the outside, but such important "notifications" - that is, upgrades and "bug fixes" of previous modifications. Nevertheless, who, if not the engineers who performed the improvement, knew for certain that the "seven hundred and sixty-second" had exhausted itself, as they say, conceptually, almost at the very beginning of the journey. After all, it was never designed to carry a ton of cargo - neither the structure of the load-bearing body nor the components and assemblies of the usual "twenty-first" Volga contributed to this. And no matter how flimsy a structure you tie up with twigs, it won't become a brick house anyway ...
My own game
Of course, they could not completely get away from the old platform in Yerevan - there was simply nowhere to take a new power unit and chassis units. However, the delivery van needed, above all, a completely different body and a more rational layout.
The work on the project was carried out not alone, but together with NAMI engineers and NIIAT specialists, for whom such tasks were an excellent opportunity to move from theory to practice.
The design of a cargo van should be absolutely original, without reference to the layout of an existing minibus. Its main highlight was the frame instead of the monocoque body.
After ErAZ-762, it became obvious that a car for the transportation of goods, albeit a low-tonnage, needs a solid base - a spar frame, since the supporting body does not provide the required rigidity and mechanical strength.
The prototype YerAZ-763 was distinguished by a cabover cab, behind which was an all-metal cargo compartment of a peculiar shape, which surpassed the front part in its linear dimensions. An original detail: sliding doors were provided on the right sidewall - but not for access to the cargo compartment, but for the passage into the cab! For loading and unloading luggage, double swing doors were provided in the rear of the car.
The prototype ErAZ-763 "Armenia" made in a single copy (1970)
However, it turned out that in order to get rid of the second chronic problem of the old ErAZ, namely the overloaded front axle, it would be necessary to make the car not without a hood, but with a half-hood layout. Due to a different redistribution of masses, the load on the front axle has become much less, because the cabin has moved inside the wheelbase. The very first sea trials showed that the ErAZ-763A has a much better weight distribution. It is interesting that these prototypes in terms of the aggregate base were not unified with the Volga, as it was before, but with ... Muscovites (on the engine) and Ulyanovsk SUVs (drive axle and gearbox).
In the course of the "research" appeared the next version of the prototypes with the index ErAZ-763B, in which the designers still returned to the "Volgov" engine. According to the new industry standard in 1966, the future van received an index of 3730 and was designed for a payload of 1,000 kg. It was assumed that the new car will have several modifications of different purpose: a minibus, an ambulance, a minibus, a refrigerator, an isothermal van and even a cottage on wheels!
YerAZ-3945 traffic police station Looking back almost half a century ago, you understand: the designers of YerAZ, together with scientific specialists, developed a car of exactly that layout, which soon became practically the only one in this class.
A typical example: the little-known, but at the same time, the legendary American postal van Grumman LLV, famous for its indestructibility, both in layout and in appearance, is very similar to the ErAZ-3730. But the Yerevan car was designed 12 years earlier!
However, it was smooth only on paper. The prototypes, as expected, were tested in various climatic zones of the USSR and already in 1973 passed the state acceptance, having received a recommendation for mass production.
And here ... perhaps, YerAZ was the first Soviet car, "never found its way to the conveyor" after approval at the state level. This happened with, and many other Soviet cars that appeared in an unfortunate period - just before the collapse of the USSR. However, a completely different story happened to YerAZ, which even sounds somewhat implausible for the well-stagnant seventies.
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The new van fell victim to the old one, which the country still needed. To launch the YerAZ-3730, the plant would have had to abandon the production of the previous model, since YerAZ simply did not have the capacity for the parallel production of new and old machines - and they were not foreseen. Due to the difference in platforms within the same conveyor, the machines did not get along - with the exception of the motor, they had nothing in common. This meant that a radical changeover was required and even the replacement of bodywork, an update of the press shop, and so on. Of course, this required money - and a lot.
If other Soviet car factories saved the prospects of exporting new models abroad, the Yerevan enterprise could not count on this - its "crumbs" in the form of tens of thousands of vans a year were easily swallowed by the huge domestic market.
It was also impossible to stop the production of the old YerAZ for the reason that the plant in Armenia was a supplier of "bodywork" for the RAFs, which were still in full production in 1973, because the new "Latvia" appeared only three years later - in 1976. This means that changing the model in Yerevan would have caused damage to the Balts. This is the kind of intra-industrial autogeopolitics multiplied by the planning and administrative macroeconomics ...
Sopor
As a result, the new model seemed to "hang" between the successfully passed state acceptance and launch into mass production. Not for a day, not for two - for years. From time to time, at YerAZ, as they say, "piece by piece" assembled small lots of new vans, often using them to "promote" a new product, which had already turned several years old by that time. Fortunately, the angular body was designed so well that it looked like "timeless".
In an effort to somehow get the coveted "ticket" to the conveyor, at YerAZ they even fussed in advance and remade two dozen of their cars "for electric drive" - \u200b\u200bthe topic of electric vehicles in the USSR started just in the mid-seventies, and Yerevan designers became pioneers of new technologies this indicator even the Volzhsky Automobile Plant with its.
The Olympics-80, which was served by specially prepared 10 YERAZ-3702 refrigerators, was not ignored either. In a word, a new (more precisely, almost ten years old!) Van "shone" where and as soon as they could, trying to arouse interest not only among the Ministry of Automobile Industry, but also among potential consumers.
Thus, participation in the Avtoprom-85 exhibition brought the van a bronze medal, and a year later, within the framework of cooperation with the Polish plant Lublin, the ErAZ-37301 isothermal van was also shown to the Poles, having sent the car to an exhibition in Poznan.
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Until the mid-eighties, the production of old YerAZ trucks was constantly increasing, reaching 15 thousand vehicles per year. But poor "thirty-seven-thirty" and remained out of work, staying "between heaven and earth" in the form of an eternal prototype, which "one of these days, or even earlier" will be put on the conveyor. But the prosperous time for the auto industry of the USSR, as well as for the country itself, has, in fact, ended, although no one suspected this then.
During the period that YerAZ was in a pre-production state, the model underwent some modifications that improved its consumer qualities. It is a pity that the consumer never appreciated them.
After all, since 1987, the auto industry began to gradually "cut off oxygen" in terms of finances, and then problems began in the Soviet state itself, which soon disintegrated into several independent countries. Armenia turned out to be far from being in the best position, therefore, there could be no question of launching a new model into serial production - the enterprise had to at least simply survive, having waited out the difficult time with the old YerAZ. Moreover, because of the lost connections and broken "threads" - both in the supply of components and in the sale of commercial vehicles - the Yerevan enterprise was on the verge of collapse.
When, in the mid-nineties, the "eternally alive" YerAZ-762 finally retired, already within the framework of the activities of JSC "YerAZ" it was finally possible to start serial production of the YerAZ-3730. It happened in 1995 - just imagine, 22 years after the positive recommendation of the State Commission! The path of the van to the conveyor turned out to be Moiseev's long ...
Alas, the very same conveyor life was short-lived: the van was produced from 1995 to the beginning of the two thousandth - until, in 2002, YerAZ finally went bankrupt. However, in recent years it was difficult to call the release of single copies manually “production”.
In the late nineties, vans enjoyed some success in the domestic market - well, where else could you buy a new cargo van for just over $ 5,000 that could carry a ton of luggage? The Armenian buyers also liked the cargo-and-passenger cars, which made it possible to carry six people and half a ton of luggage. However, like the company itself, YerAZ was simply doomed to float freely. A successful platform, but foreign units, small production capacity, lack of access to foreign markets - in fact, the national pride of the Armenian car industry has remained a "thing in itself" that no one really knew.
Could the future of the project be successful if it was launched in a series?
