(first posted 2/15/2011)
The fact that Russia did some major automotive cribbing back in the day is old hat. But here’s one that managed to escape me until today: the ZIS 112. Well, they weren’t the only one: the inspiration for this beast was very influential, and influenced a raft of vehicles, including some unexpected ones. But despite being cribbed, the ZIS 112 has a fascinating history and evolution.
Obviously, the 1951 Buick LeSabre was a very distinctive, with it’s high-mounted single jet air intake. But the Russians converted that into a single headlight, which of course reminds me of another car, a former CC.
The ZIS 112, known appropriately enough as the Cyclops, was hardly as fresh as the very innovative LeSabre, with its all-new aluminum V8. Cyclops was a re-bodied ZIS 110, and you can the two of them side by side below.
This led to some serious compromises: the Cyclops sat on the 110’s limo-like chassis, and ended up being over six meters (20 plus feet) long, hardly the stuff of a competition car, which was part of the Cyclops agenda. Well, if it was going to race against it’s donor like pictured here, the Cyclops was bound to do a bit better, even if it only had 140 hp from the 110’s V8.
Here’s a better shot of the hardtop.
But the ZIS’s sporting ambitions didn’t end there. You can read the whole evolution of the 112 at Kustomrama, but let’s just say that this final evolutionary stage of the 112 ends up looking a lot like some of GM’s other Motorama concepts of the time.
Was the LeSabre concept a right hand drive as shown? If so, why did they go that way?
Ooops; somehow that picture got flipped; fixed now.
But imagine the trunk space!
Paul, the central air intake on the LeSabre were headlights as well. The grillwork revolved and exposed the lights in a trim panel, much like the hidden headlights on the 1966 Dodge Charger.
I was letting myself get a bit carried aloft by its jet theme…and you have to pop the bubble 🙂
Seems like the Soviets, if anyone, should have been the ones to run with that central-air-intake theme. Their fighters stuck with it (MiG-21, Su-11, etc) long after it was abandoned by the US and others…
It certainly gave their fighters a Flash Gordon look, along with the steep sweepback. But the Handley-Page Victor looked the part even better.
To bring back your jet theme, did you know the LeSabre also ran on methanol? It had separate tanks for methanol and gasoline. The performance was much better with the methanol. It also had a rain sensor on the console that would put up the top if it started raining. Pretty impressive for 1951!
I think it had pneumatic jacks built in jacks too?
The only reason performance would have been better with methanol would have been if, when switching from gas to methanol a power-adder, i.e., a supercharger, would have been brought into play, effectively upping the compression ratio and volumetric efficiency. Methanol has half the btus of gasoline. Traditionally methanol has been used at Indy because you could continuously jack up the compression ratio without fear of detonation. But you still had to worry about whether other components-con rods, cranks, pistons-were up to the additional imposed load.
Actually, Soviet auto industry was heavily influenced by US auto technical and aesthetic traditions. Up to early 60s all cars and trucks would be either based upon or copied from US originals (Packard in the case of the above). But even in the designs from the 70’s it was funny to discover such American touches as pull-out external light switch or a high/low beams switch that you’d operate with your left foot. Up to the 90s almost all 2.5 – 5 Ton trucks would be powered by a gasoline V8 engine.
In Soviet Russia…….
Motor…Ramas…you!
Hand Banana! NO!!!
*slap slap slap*
HAHA
A Studebaker gone bad!
It looks like a Studebaker Champion on steroids.
Wow. In Soviet Russia we rebody a 41 Packard limo with 140 Hp and call it a sports car. Would that be a Potemkin Thunderbird?
So ugly it’s back to bei… nope, still ugly.
The Russian car looks to be the bastard child of the 51 LeSabre, (which btw I recall seeing when I was ten) and the 49
Tucker. Sadly I never did peep my eyes on one though have dim memories of seeing it in Mechanix Illustrated.
Was the Russian Cyclops designed by Piero Martini’s Russian cousin and made out of metal signs that advertised vodka? (Instead of the Cinzano signs used on Piero Martini’s Cyclops. Reference – Stan Mott’s creations in articles in Road and Track.)
I see they added some windowZIL’s to the hardtop, though the styling looks to be the result of a GAZ leak…..
Replace the grille vent with a giant Mazda M or Stay-Puff Toyota T and presto: you have 1/4 of the cars in the parking deck where I work.
Woulda made a good ute with those proportions
From the pics, assuming they represent the same chassis, the vehicle seems to have had three different windshield treatments.
Also the lights (blinkers?) on either side of the grille migrated to new locations under the bumper (or vice versa).
I briefly studied Russian many moons ago, and can still decipher the banner in the middle picture, which reads (phonetically): F-I-N-I-SH.
It’s interesting that the Soviets would use the phonetic spelling of an English word to mark the finish line.
Similarly, I believe stop signs in Russia spell the English word STOP using Cyrillic letter equivalents.
I gave up on learning Russian when I realized it combined all the complexities of French and Latin grammars.
Perhaps this was the inspiration for Ace and Gary’s car in that SNL cartoon sketch.
Any chance the Cyclops designer was a Jimmy Durante fan?
Huge honker. Wide smile. Eyes a little squinty, though.
Did the Packard 140 have a V8 as the picture caption suggests? I thought that was still a few years away.
The ZIL 110 used a straight eight with side valves. IIRC, it was a Chrysler design and not Packard. AGB
Always though the LeSabre looked like IT came from Russia.
Looks to me that that “47” car could have been cobbled up from some genuine GM parts modified with a sledgehammer. About that imitation Packard, I saw one up close at a museum in Budapest and I recall that they got it right even down to the unique fluted bar shaped ivory colored knobs on the cigar lighter and other dash switches.
ZIS built another sports car earlier in 1939 called the ZIS 101 Sport. The front is sort of like a Lincoln Zephyr. Not bad looking overall, but the proportions are odd since it was built on the ZIS limousine wheelbase.
Here’s a side view – that sucker is loooong!
My understanding is that Harley Earl drove the 1938 Buick “Y-Job” concept car, as his daily driver for 12 years.
He then replaced it with the LeSabre. Not sure how long he drove the LeSabre.
Not sure how I missed this the first time around. The windshield treatment on the ZIS coupe reminds me of the windshield on the upper level of the Greyhound Scenicruiser. Who says Russian design wasn’t influential?
The LeSabre still runs and drives today. The presenter at the Motor Muster said how many miles Earl put on it, but I forgot. If you guys ever make it to this area again, you need to be here on Father’s Day weekend to catch the Motor Muster.
It was brutally hot at the Muster this year. That model kept swishing her dress. I asked if she was trying to get some air movement. She said “yes”. I said “is it working for you?” She said “I keep doing it”.