Little-known trucks from the Kyiv Motorcycle Plant (7 photos)

The Kyiv Motorcycle Plant was better known for its products, both in the former USSR and abroad. But few know about the attempts to create a small truck based on motorcycle and car components. They looked quite intriguing.





It all began in 1960 with the creation of prototypes of the KMZ-1.

The vehicle was a small flatbed truck built on a backbone frame. The engine was a 750cc, 26 hp, twin-cylinder boxer from the heavy K-750 motorcycle.



The gearbox was also a motorcycle one, with four forward speeds, and the reverse gear was installed as a separate gearbox on the rear drive axle.





The steering wheel, steering gear, rods and brake system, door handles, and some instruments were from a Moskvich-402 passenger car. The cabin and body were of our own design. The cabin looked a little strange, but attractive. The ten-inch wheels were very small, more suitable for a scooter. The first British Minis had wheels of a similar diameter.



Despite its seemingly fragile design, it had a load capacity of 600 kilograms.

The KMZ-3 soon appeared. It was radically different from its predecessor. The truck was built on a spar frame, and the cabin was completely new, designed in an American style.



Under the hood was the same motorcycle engine, its power generally sufficient to accelerate the car to the stated top speed of 80 km/h. Fuel consumption was quite modest, about 7 liters per 100 km, since the engine was four-stroke; pure gasoline was used in the tank, so there was no need to mix it with oil. The steering and brakes were taken from the ZAZ-965 Zaporozhets. The wheels were also taken from it. The suspension was independent, torsion-type.

The KMZ-4 van was based on this vehicle.



The car, as we can see, even had a license plate. So, theoretically, it could have been captured on camera in Kyiv in the early 1960s.

In my opinion, this was a good bid for success in the domestic market, where there was a pressing need for delivery vans with a payload capacity of up to a ton.

But unfortunately, funds were not found for full testing and production. Not a single example of these original trucks has survived to this day.