"ZIL-164" - an inconspicuous hard worker

2024 Author: Erin Ralphs | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-19 11:42

We tend to animate a variety of objects and attribute human feelings and emotions to them. This is especially true for cars. If you follow the described practice, then the Soviet truck "ZIL 164" can be described as a modest, trouble-free worker. He was most often in the shadow of his predecessors, the more famous models - "ZiS 150", "ZiS 5". Nevertheless, for quite a long time he worked at numerous enterprises of the national economy.

If you trace the history of "ZIL 164", then it can start from pre-war times. As early as the end of 1930, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, a new vehicle was prepared to replace the then-produced ZIS 5 truck, which received the ZIS 15 index. The war did not allow timely implementation of this project, and only after its completion, at the end of 1947, a new car, called "ZIL 150",began to be mass-produced. In the course of its production, constant modernization was carried out, in 1957 the modernized machine received the ZIL 164 index and was produced under it until 1964.

In terms of its capabilities, it was a transitional model from the outdated ZIL 150 to the new ZIL 130, which was still being prepared for development. Even on mass-produced

samples of trucks sometimes put nodes (for testing and running) from the new model. Nevertheless, some backwardness in no way affected the demand for one hundred and sixty-fourth. Cars "ZiL" for many years were the main working machines in any fleet, and in the Soviet Army.

Technical characteristics of ZIL are quite worthy of respect (for that period of time): the carrying capacity was four thousand kilograms, the gasoline engine was a six-cylinder, with a capacity of one hundred hp. An advantage can be considered the ability to tow a trailer with a permissible weight of four thousand two hundred kilograms. The car was not fast, its maximum speed was seventy kilometers per hour, but by modern standards it had a decent appetite - 36 liters / 100 km.

Demanded was not only "ZIL" onboard, but also its components and the car itself without a body. One hundred and sixty-fourths were produced both in the version of a truck tractor, and as various specialized vehicles - tankers, vans, cranes, fire engines, dump trucks andetc. At the Kutaisi Automobile Plant, on the basis of ZiL, they produced their own cars, at first they were dump trucks with a body tipping to one side, and then a truck tractor. With great success, individual parts and components of the machine were used in the production of buses.

However, as the ZIL 130 design was developed and the conveyor was ready for the start of production of the new model, production volumes of the 164th began to fall, and then in December 1964 it was completely discontinued. Despite the rather limited period of production, cars of this series were distinguished by decent reliability and deserved the best rating. Separate copies have been preserved and are still in full working order.

Although the car "ZIL 164" did not leave an impressive mark in the history of the country, but in its development the fate of this truck did not go unnoticed. He worked in various areas - from north to south and from east to west, he took on different forms - a truck, a dump truck, a van, a tractor, a tanker, etc. Inconspicuous, but extremely rich and filled with constant work, the fate went to this car.