A new model under the legendary Volga name may appear at GAZ next year. As in the case of the new Moskvich, they will take a foreign development, most likely a Chinese one, as a basis.
The Gorky Automobile Plant stopped producing the Volga in the decade before last: the last original development was the GAZ-31105, which, however, had many foreign components in the last years of its conveyor life. The production of the GAZ-31105 ended in 2009, and in 2010 the history of the Volga Cyber, a Chrysler Sebring clone, ended ingloriously. The plant made attempts to develop a new Volga on its own more than once, but none of the projects became massive, the most striking (at least in terms of design) was the GAZ-3111.
After 2010, there were rumors that GAZ could still return to the production of the Volga: for example, in 2017, the plant management considered the possibility of starting the production of small commercial «heels» under the Volga brand, but this idea was not realized either. In 2020, information flashed in the media that the Skoda Octavia could turn into a new passenger car Volga (the Czech model at that time was produced at GAZ under a contract with the Volkswagen concern), but it turned out to be pure fantasy, like a large number of computer renderings on the topic new Volga, including from our artist Nikita Chuiko — his version of the new Volga is shown in the title picture.
In 2022, as a result of well-known geopolitical events, a large-scale redistribution of the Russian car market began: Chinese companies began to replace the outgoing Western and Japanese companies. In particular, the Moscow Renault plant was transferred to the city authorities, renamed Moskvich and launched a converted crossover of the Chinese company JAC under the historical Russian brand. AvtoVAZ, in turn, will soon replenish the model range with the FAW badge-engineering crossover. Against this background, it is even a little strange that GAZ decided to use idle areas for the production of cars only now, or rather, it began to prepare for this.
Actually, the news about the new Volga came not from the press service of GAZ, but from the Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov, who was quoted by the state media yesterday. So, RIA Novosti, citing Manturov, reports that GAZ is now choosing a technology partner for the implementation of the new Volga project, a decision will be made in the near future. Where they are looking for a partner, the Deputy Prime Minister did not specify, but considering that «the production of cars under the Volga brand is planned to be organized by analogy with Moskvich», it is easy to guess/assume that we are talking about the development of another Chinese model.
According to According to Manturov, the development of the new Volga will take 8-9 months, the plant leaves a couple more months as a reserve, in the end you need to count on a year, that is, in the summer of 2024, the new Volga has every chance to enter the market.
Great Wall Chaopai 1/4 Great Wall Chaopai 2/4 Great Wall Chaopai 3/4 Great Wall Chaopai 4/4
What kind of Chinese model can become the new Volga, so far one can only guess — there are a huge number of options. From ourselves, we note that in terms of style, the Great Wall Chaopai concept of the 2020 model is closest to the original Russian Volga, which, unfortunately, did not become serial. Most likely, the new Volga will be a modern business class model without any retro motives. With the help of Chinese partners, it is possible, in theory, to revive other brands lying in the GAZ archive — Pobeda and Chaika.
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