Pretty much everything manufactured in the Soviet Union was stouter but cruder than their Western counterparts. Today’s Nice Price or No Dice GAZ-69 allows us to experience that firsthand. We’ll have to see just how much of a capitalist one would need to be to buy it.
Having a fecal-ton of mileage under its belt isn’t all that problematic when the car in question is an old Volvo like the 1985 245DL we looked at yesterday. Additional factors in that Swedish wagon’s favor were its manual gearbox and a respectably low $3,600 asking price. All together, that resulted in a solid 82 percent Nice Price win.
In the aftermath of WWII, efforts were undertaken by nations around the globe to restore their economies, and a large part of that was rebuilding the transportation infrastructure to engender local and cross-border trade. To that end, many countries’ car manufacturers introduced small, fuel-efficient cars, which gave us the likes of the Fiat 500, BMW Isetta, and Citroën 2CV.
In Russia, one of the first post-war cars was the GAZ M20 Pobeda (Victory), built by the Gorky Avto Zazod (Gorky Car Factory) in Nizhny Novgorod, located in the Volga region of central Russia. Out of that car was developed a 4X4 truck called the GAZ-69, which was intended to serve as the Soviet Military’s primary light-duty all-terrain utility. Production of the GAZ-69 began in 1953 and ended in 1972. During that run, production shifted to UAZ (Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) in 1956, but the truck still kept the GAZ name.
This 1972 GAZ-69 pickup is from that final year of UAZ production and is claimed to have had a frame-off restoration “many years ago.” According to the description in the ad, it has been in storage in a shipping container for more than a decade since. Still, seeing as these were designed to be military-tough, there probably wasn’t much degradation over that time while squirreled away.
With its canary over black two-tone paint scheme, it certainly presents as more of a vintage farm truck than a military truck, but that’s just a thin patina over a rough-hewn base. This one does have Volvo seats and, strangely enough, a Sony stereo, so driving it won’t exactly be like bare-backing a Kalashnikov, but it should offer most of the expected experience.
Power for the 69 (and yes, that number will never not be funny), is made by a 2.1-liter gas four mated to a three-speed manual gearbox and two-speed (high/low) transfer case. The 4WD system is rudimentary but effective, and with just 55 horsepower on tap, it’s probably more fun to slog this GAZ offroad than right-lane it down the highway.
Either of those activities will have to wait as the seller notes that the brake master has been yanked out due to a leak, making the truck unsafe (or even less safe, depending on your point of view) to drive. Amazingly, brake masters are readily available on eBay and are relatively cheap to boot. On the plus side, this GAZ does come with a clean title, and the seller’s boast that it rides better than any contemporary Jeep. The asking price is $7,000.
What do we think of this weird, and weirdly wonderful, Soviet-era 4X4 and that $7,000 cost of ownership entry? Does that feel like a fair deal to 4X4 the Borscht Belt? Or is it too oddball to ask that much?
You decide!
Portland, Oregon, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Bill Wright for the hookup!
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