Top 5 Soviet Engineering To Go Places

Hello Carmrades! It is Friday, so before you go killing your brain cells with alcohol tonight, let’s do some interactive education. Meet my Top 5 of Soviet vehicle engineering.

1. KamAZ

The truck that has dominated the Dakar rally for 13 times since the beginning of this century, which makes it absolutely worthy to be on this list. And not only the sports: unlike many other Soviet manufacturers that did not survive the fall of the Soviet Union, KamAZ is still going strong, producing about 43000 trucks a year.

2. GAZ-61

This model is being considered as the first SUV in the world. Although Chevrolet Suburban entered production in 1935, it only had RWD. GAZ-61 however, had 4x4 in 1938 which allowed it to climb 40-degree hills and strairs like Rocky Balboa.

3. Ural-4320

Just like KamAZ, this bad boy was introduced in 1976. And if KamAZ requires Dakar-spec to be able to overcome world’s toughest roads, this monster can travel any impossible road in the “stock” trim, even if you can’t consider it a road anymore.

4. ZIL-29061

The chances are high you have never seen such thing before. Meet ZIL-29061. For a history lesson on ZIL, check out this article I wrote for Speedhunters (& I will release a video later myself). The 29061 was designed to to recover re-entered space capsules from the Soyuz space mission. As you can guess, space capsule can land anywhere, and that was exactly the vehicle’s purpose: to GO ANYWHERE.

5. ZIL PKU-1

Another ZIL, another “Comrade engineer, I got very drunk last night, look what I have designed!”. No other way I can describe it. It is not a car, not a truck, not a tractor and not a hoovercraft. I guess the video can explain it better.

I hope you have enjoyed this top 5! Let me know in the comments what’s your favorite and please post any capitalist versions of “crazy engineering meant to go anywhere”!

P.S. If you liked the Soviet videos, then please check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel. From next week on I will be releasing 2 fresh episodes every week!