The Pedal Car ‘Moskvich’ (Part 1)

Every Soviet preschool boy dreamt of having their own pedal car. In the USSR, according to different sources, the children’s cars were in production since 1920’s, but this toy gained serious mass popularity starting from 1960’s, when the production of children’s vehicles was set up at the automobile plant AZLK.  Among the all variety of pedal cars produced at different factories, the most popular one is considered to be Moskvitch.

The production of the second generation of this car started in 1973 and ceased only in 1994. It is believed that the number of the produced pedal Moskvitch cars was no less than that of its “big brother”, which contributed to the fact that these cars could be seen in all yards of soviet cities.  Over time, many pedal Moskvitchs became nothing but warm childhood memories. These toys became obsolete and fell apart because of poor quality of thin steel sheet, of which they had been made. Many people started to get rid of the 13-kilogramme toys, since they took up too much space in their flats. This pedal car was not an exception and was doomed to scrapheap.

There are two big questions for me: how one could dare to purchase it for the purpose of restoration and how it was possible to restore it, when not a single element was able to function in it. However, as the pictures show, all these took place in reality. The start of the second life of this pedal car can be considered the second of November 2014. On that day, a lucky man became the owner of the Moskvitch and brought it to the restoration workshop, where at that time the specialists were engaged only in restoring real retro-cars.
To be continued...

Volga GAZ-21 (Part 2)

Predictably, very soon, one of the particularly well-preserved cars of the taxi fleet was assigned to the family of the head of the taxi company. It was basically used as the official car for the father of the family; the rest of the time it was used by his son.

Then, there came the time for generation change, namely, the era of the new Volga GAZ-24. After 12 years of service, it was acquired by one of the repairers of the maintenance shop at the same taxi company. The dexterous mechanic quickly restored the crumbling Volga and decided to modify it for the use in his work. Since 1973, this Volga was used as a recovery and tow vehicle for faulty cabs. With years, the bright color of this car became quite recognizable; more and more motorists became interested in its services. Its bright color the car received during the transformation into a recovery vehicle.
Gavryusha Arakelyan, the owner of the car, still actively uses it as intended. Today, from a collectable point of view, this car is of no interest, since it has some internal inconsistencies with the original Volga of second edition.

The decorative radiator grille, front turn signals, hood, front fenders, both bumpers, taillights and logos- all of these elements were taken from the third edition, which was released in 1963-1970. The third edition can be distinguished through its long strip of drainage molding on the roof. The car has many additional identification markings on all sides. It’s equipped with a unique roof rack of an unknown manufacturer from Germany, specially designed for this model. On the photos the car is in its “element” towing a huge air compressor.