I’m not going to pretend that I know very much about the Soviet ZAZ 966B, shown here as a 1969 model and currently being auctioned on Cars and Bids in Mission Viejo, California. Being that it’s an interesting and unusual (in America, anyway) small car, however, I don’t see how we can possibly ignore taking a look.
The ZAZ factory was located in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and the little ZAZ “Zaporozhets” started coming off the line in 1960 as the ZAZ 965, while the redesigned 966 (shown here as a 966B), was introduced as a 1966 model. Production of this car’s very similar-looking successor, the ZAZ 968M, lasted until 1994.
If you think the 966 looks a bit familiar, you’re right. This NSU Prinz 4, shown as a 1971 model in a very similar if not exact shade of orange as the ZAZ, was introduced in September 1961, five years before the 966. Both cars, however, take a lot of inspiration from the 1960 Corvair, so if you’re going to blame ZAZ for plagiarizing a design motif, you’ll have to also blame NSU.
All Zaporozhets were small, rear-engined, air cooled cars with V4 engines. In the ad, the seller mentions that this is a 27-horsepower 0.9-liter four, but some of the information I’ve found suggests that it might have as much as 29 horsepower. Wikipedia (sorry), on the other hand, says that the 966B was upgraded to a 40-horsepower 1.2-liter variant of the V4. I’ll assume that the owner knows best in this occasion, and they mention that the V4’s engine is cast in magnesium, which seems like a very 1960s material for an engine.
The interior is exactly what you’d expect from a 1960s compact, and it’s probably a little more well-equipped than your image of a car from the Soviet states would lead you to believe. I’m not sure if the door panels and upholstery match the factory materials, but the 966B even has map pockets.
Sure the dashboard looks a little bit like that of a school bus, but the instrument cluster is perfect. The font looks like just about any 1960s European compact, and the warning lights feature an array of colors, not just red and green. The oil pressure gauge (I think that’s what it is!) is a period aftermarket accessory, and based on the driving videos the seller posted, it doesn’t register much more than 1 bar oil pressure (about 14 psi). That’s low, but the gauge could very well be incorrect. The seller says that they’ve driven it about 700 miles in the last four years, so it can’t be too big a problem.
The best part of the interior? It has to be the pedals, which were almost certainly designed by three discrete departments. The gas pedal is attached to the firewall and requires the driver’s right foot to be almost flat, while the brake pedal sticks straight up from the floor, requiring way too much time to reorient one’s foot for the purpose. Fortunately, you won’t be going very fast anyway; the seller says it’s been up to 45-50 miles per hour…downhill.
But these little quirks are what makes a car like this so interesting. The seller says that the car was “reportedly imported from Ukraine in the early 2010s,” and has some flaws here and there, including an exhaust leak (which can be heard in the driving videos), fluid seeping, and general aging. It does have new tires, tubes (!), and brakes, in addition to other assorted maintenance that will take a load off the new owner. And even if that owner does have to do a little tweaking, and they will, it’s a small price to pay if you have been on the lookout for a ZAZ 966B. After all, it might be your only chance.
Related Reading
Automotive History: How The 1960 Corvair Started A Global Design Revolution (by Paul N)
Russian Veterans Day Special: Zaporozhets ZAZ-965/966/968 Models For Wounded Veterans (by Robert Kim)
Based on the units, I agree the aftermarket gauge (Made in USSR) is likely oil pressure. The factory gauge on the right side of the speedo, mirroring the fuel gauge on the left, is oil temperature. A good feature for an air-cooled motor. The instrument cluster design is pretty standard 1960’s, but some of the details look very Volvo-ish.
Always liked the looks of these, since I first saw a pic, in, iirc, Mechanix Illustrated, in the 60s. Seems more modern that the Volga, that McCahill tested.
Iirc, my soviet literature that I haven’t got at hand at the moment quoted this version at 30hp. I believe it started out at 26hp in the 965 in 1960. Those numbers would be in GOST HP, I suppose?
The second generation ZAZ was introduced in 1966 as the 966V which combined the completely new, NSU-knockoff body with the 900cc engine from the old, Fiat 600-like 965. The 1200cc version with a whopping 40hp came along a few years later and was called 966B. There might be some confusion there with spelling as “V” looks like “B” in cyrillic.
Anyway, it was updated to 968A in 1972, keeping the same engine and same boxy body but dropping the faux grille and replacing it with a fat chrome strip. I could force, no, subjugate my 968A to get up to to 115kph as it really didn’t want to, but for that I needed to go completely flat out for about 2km on a straight road for it to eventually pick up that speed. And it felt seriously dangerous, but I was 17 and didnt care, I just wanted to go as fast as I could. Actually the thing felt dangerous at any speed above 80kph, even for a 17-year-old.
In 1979 it got a fugly update featuring black plastic trim, rectangular tail lights and 43hp engine and persisted until 1994. This final version was called 968M.
And no, these things weren’t considered cool in USSR, not at all. Everyone driving one was kinda ashamed of it and would have much preferred to be in a Moskvich or Lada 😅
Oh my God! It’s adorable!
True, “toons, car”.
Ah, the legendary big-eared Zapor, as some called it, the butt of a thousand jokes in the Soviet world. “The shame of the family, like a pregnant eight-grader”. “Just a couple of hours of humiliation and we’ll be at our dacha”.
Minor correction: the 966 is more than just a restyle of the “hunchback” 965, but a complete re-design with an entirely new body.
Thank you…I’ve updated the text to say “redesigned” instead of “restyled,” which was a little misleading.
The gearbox of the ZAZ was noisy and was known as “the music box of Melitopol.”
Those pedals are crazy! Has there ever been another car with a combination of suspended clutch and through-the-floor brake pedals? And such a massive angular disparity between the two. My right ankle feels sore just looking at the angle of that accelerator. If that’s indicative of the overall engineering – no thanks.
To learn from the Soviet Union is to learn to drive.
Don’t ever buy a Citroen DS manual, Pete!
The pedals are what turned me off of it.
Otherwise it looks like a first generation Falcon and a first generation Corvair made a baby.
So true!
Zaz what I want!
Or, not. Marketing snappies couldn’t save this, unlike a veewee, which was actually a decent-enough product such that cheeky ad lines worked.
Notoriously atrocious cars, from their ability to park on their roofs upon any cornering to the box of apparently unconnected gears to the interior fumes to the quite useless Earthquake Vee shaker in the tail. They will supposedly run on anything, so there’s that, but it’s not really enough, is it?
Some cars are an automotive capsule: this charmless assassin is more of pustule.
A satisfied owner type.