MOTORING Communist Countries Expand Car Production

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28866, 10 April 1959, Page 14

MOTORING Communist Countries Expand Car Production

TN 1958, motor vehicle production x in the Soviet Union amounted to about 500,000 units. It is to be increased to between 750.000 and 856.000 a year by 1965 under the seven-year plan. Communist China’s main motor plant at Changchun is to be expanded to produce 150.000 units a year by 1960. At the Geneva motor show, in a pavilion just outside it. Czechoslovakia was- offering a Skoda sports model to sell in Germany at £450. The price of the same car in Prague is £l4OO. Moreover, the buyer must put down £lOOO and satisfy several conditions to get a car. There are three facets of the coming new Red trade challenge. Although the Communist bloc countries can absorb a large number of motor vehicles, Moscow is planning a big export drive at the world markets. The aim is to challenge the American. British and French superiority in them. It will be extended also to the midget car and motor-cycle markets. i Russian Midget

j Russia is to mass-produce a new ■ midget car in 1960. China is I already experimenting with a • number of prototypes. Czechoslovakia is already a large-scale (exporter of motor-cycles. At the I moment, Czech motor-industry i products are the spearhead of the j growing export drive.

i In Britain the Skoda 440 four--seater saloon is offered at £575 i plus tax. In other parts of the i world, its price is as low at | £386. The Czechs have five models on offer, and although their finish does not compare with I that of British cars of comparable prices, they do sell. Czechoslovakia is also exporting increasing quantities of the Tatra 111 lorry. especially to Egypt, Mexico, and Iran, because it has a good cross-country performance. It can be bought in Mexico City at approximately half the price charged to the State enterprises at home.

Jawa Motor-Cycles

The main Czech export in the motor-cycle market is the 250 c.c. Jawa. The best individual market is Holland, where one firm alone has sold more than 30,000 of them. Recently Prague put out a claim to be the world’s largest exporter of light motorcycles. It is worth noting that some of the precision tools used originally to build the Jawa were bought in Britain.

Russia plans to base her export drive, already in evidence in more than 40 countries in the pri-vate-car market, on three models —the well-known Pobeda. the newer Volga, and the smaller Moskvich, to challenge the British light car market. Pobeda taxis are to be seen in | Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The Moskvich is on sale in Athens, and a "sales organisation, Mosk-vich-Argentina, has been set up. At the Gorky Auto plant the new seven-seater Chaika—similar in appearance to the Ford Zephyr—is beginning to come off the production line.

Mikrolitrazhnye

Prospectus of the proposed Soviet midget car:— Weight, 13221 b; top speed, 55 m.p.h.; petrol consumption, 50-55 m.p.g.; engine, at the rear, air-cooled, developing 2025 h.p.; gearbox, 4-speed; tyres, tubeless.

No chassis. Clutch, gearbox and main drive linked in a solid block with the engine. Independent suspension.

“Mikrolitrazhnye”—midget cars —are to be produced in a new factory now building at Zaporozhe, and the first batch is due to come off the assembly line next year. The Russians made 10 different prototypes. They also bought, tested, and stripped down several dozen Italian, French, and German midget cars. From them they have evolved the as-yet unnamed and unpriced car, specially designed for use on the bad roads that are a feature of the Russian countryside. The Chinese claim to have pro-

duced “200 models in six months” is patently nonsense. Many of them, like the fantastic 120-seater double-deck motor-coach, built in the Kunming Repair Works, without blueprints, are either purely experimental types or the work of bands of enthusiasts using any • materials available. At the same i time. China is getting down .to the mass production of vehicles, converting former repair plants into construction units. Most of the models are copies of wellknown American and Continental models.

Peking Production

The Chingkang-Shan. produced by the Peking Motor Works, is a cross between the French Dauphine and the Ford Anglia. The eight-cylinder Red Flag limousine, produced in the Changchun plant, has a definite American--1957-model touch about it. The type 59 jeep, joint production of three plants in Shanghai, is a more-or-less straight copy of the Willys-Knight product. The major car-producing countries would be unwise to neglect ' this new Red trade challenge. At ' I the moment the democratic world is well ahead in output, design. I quality and performance. But . how many persons, five years ago. , would have regarded China capable of producing any motor ] vehicles at all? Once again, it should be remembered that■ i behind her trade drive is the 1 largest, the cheapest, and the most i I highly disciplined labour force in i . the world. ' Nor should it be forgotten that i [ 10 years ago experts in the West- • ern world were saying that Rus- » sia could not become a mass i producer of machine tools. Now she is exporting them.—(Central Press. All rights reserved.)