Russian Automotive Design

The book recreates the prehistory of Russian automotive design. It tells about Soviet cars as well as design in Russia from the early 20th century to the present day. The most vivid pages of our automotive history in the era of Russian modernism and avant-garde are reflected, the stage of the formation of the school of Russian automotive design of the 1920s and 1930s, the concepts that remained in drawings and experimental developments, as well as little-known details and difficulties in creating the design of our cars.

Unfortunately, many details of the formation of automotive design in our country, as well as the names of its pioneers, have been lost or forgotten. However, such Russian cars as "Russo-Balt", "Victory", "Volga" or "Niva" are widely known and recognizable, and the sketches of the "kitchen" of domestic automotive design presented in the book allow one to feel pride in our domestic design.

"The book attempts to present the history of domestic professional automotive design over the past 120 years. I would say - a tragic history. Yes, in quantitative terms, our automotive design experience cannot be compared with foreign experience. However, the materials presented, the concepts, the built prototypes, as well as the preceding design sketches convincingly testify that we had outstanding specialists, true artists, designers, and bodywork masters. We are not ashamed of them, of their labor. But it is very upsetting that on the way to implementing projects during the Soviet years, there was an impenetrable wall of the administrative-command system, when every secretary of the regional committee, not to mention the Central Committee or the top officials of the state, knew how to make cars and what beauty was. Design, moreover, always became a victim of residual financing: the logic of the bosses was simple - the Germans (Americans, Italians) had already figured everything out, why waste state money on some design, it was necessary to take and copy. Such Confucianism did not take into account either the national mentality of consumers or the state of domestic roads and infrastructure. After the command Soviet system came anarchy and chaos of the transitional period, when projectors and non-professionals were put in charge of design...

Thus, the victories of domestic design ("Victory", "Niva", and "Twenty-first Volga") are all the more valuable for us - they were all achieved against the odds. I believe that our historical, often negative, experience has benefited the new generation of automotive designers. It is no coincidence that our designers are highly valued all over the world. They are valued for their creativity, breadth of vision, and high level of professional training. I believe in the future of our design, in our new victories"