1932–1936: the history of the first taxis in the USSR and their social impact...
The First Taxi in the Land of the Soviets
From 1932 to 1936 the GAZ-A was the first mass-produced passenger car. It became the first Soviet VIP taxi, replacing all foreign-made cars.
These cars had a five-seat, four-door body — the so-called "phaeton" — and were the first passenger taxis in the Soviet Union. The GAZ-A was the first domestic car to be fitted with hydraulic rotary-type single-acting shock absorbers.
The wire-spoked wheels were very rigid, fixed immovably to the hub and rim, and had no adjustment nipples. All wheels had shoe brakes with mechanical actuation. The handbrake was a band type, acting on the rear wheels.
The gearbox in the car was three-speed, fuel was gravity-fed to the carburetor, and the electrical equipment was quite simple.
The body of the VAZ-A was equipped with a vacuum-operated windshield wiper and a rear-view mirror, and the windshield could move within its frame. To make it convenient for the driver, a fixed support was provided under the accelerator pedal. Ground clearance was fairly generous. The majority of drivers mastered this car very easily. However, phaetons were not very comfortable for taxi passengers in cold seasons, and the GAZ factory had not yet produced passenger cars with closed bodies. Therefore, in 1935 the Moscow "Aremkuz" plant began producing small batches of four-door closed bodies with wooden frames, which were covered with sheet metal and mounted on the GAZ-A chassis.
From 1936 to 1943 the GAZ plant produced the famous "Emka" — the GAZ-M-1 car. The "Emka" served throughout the Great Patriotic War and was successfully used as a taxi in the postwar years. In 1940, about 3,000 GAZ-M-1 taxis were operating on routes.
Later the Gorky Automobile Plant concluded a technical assistance agreement with the Ford factory, as a result of which it received technical documentation for the Ford-40. The project's preparation for the production of the new car model was led by the plant's chief designer A.A. Lipgard. This project later became known as the GAZ-M-1.
The main innovation for the Soviet automotive industry was a new type of body, which was now closed and made from solid metal. The only exception was the lateral roof beam, which remained wooden.
Many of the car's systems were improved: the engine was pressure-lubricated, the cooling system was driven by a pump, the carburetor was updated, and more.