On December 31, 1964, the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR decided to produce vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-10 tons. This is how the history of the Yerevan Automobile Plant began.
In the conditions of the Soviet planned economy, the Yerevan project from the very beginning looked almost spontaneous and therefore doomed to be an “eternal stepchild” domestic auto industry. The need to increase the production of light-duty vans as a strategic task was voiced by the USSR State Planning Committee in the first half of the 60s.
At the same time, the State Planning Committee was well aware that the economic effect from the use of such vans was not so great as to seriously redraw the budget of the five-year plan, which means that to implement the project it would be necessary to “find reserves.”
Initially, the talk was about mastering the production of the RAF-977K van developed in Riga. But the option of reconstructing and expanding the Riga Automobile Plant (RAF) was not even considered on a large scale (too costly). It was even more expensive to build a new plant. And industry strategists paid attention to the construction under construction near Yerevan factory forklifts.
The enterprise was designed to produce completely different products and for smaller production volumes, but it was possible quickly and with minimal costs convert part of the unfinished workshops into a car plant. This determined the future fate of ErAZ. Throughout its history, it was continuously completed, rebuilt, reconstructed, expanded, and all this only in order to acquire the appearance of a full-fledged automobile plant. To master new production areas All the funds, already small, from time to time from the country's budget, were spent. For Armenia its own automobile plant was important not so much from an economic point of view as for national pride and self-respect.
During 1965 the first core of the team was created, and 66 people were trained at Riga and Ulyanovsk enterprises automotive industry. The first production building was built, the first machines were installed, and the first parts were processed.
September 10, 1965 of the year by order of the Council of Ministers of Armenia. SSR N795, the forklift plant under construction is named Yerevan Automobile Plant (YerAZ).
- In 1966, the head of the mechanical engineering department of the Economic Council of Armenia was appointed the first director of the plant. SSR Zaven Simonyan. His name is associated with the development of the plant, the creation of a master plan and the justification for financing capital construction.
During the period of its activity, the production of the first samples was mastered, capacities were created for serial production of 2,500 cars per year, the production volume was increased to 1,000 cars per year. - May 1, 1966 of the year plant employees went to the May Day parade in cars they had assembled themselves.
- Plant director from 1968 to 1973. - Stepan Ivanovich Avanyan. During its work, the first reconstruction of the plant was carried out and capacity was created to produce 6,500 cars per year. The volume of products starts from 1000 pcs. in 1968 it grew to 6,500 units.
- In 1972, construction of the second press and forging production building continued at an accelerated pace. In 1973, construction was completed. Procurement of basic equipment was ensured. At this stage, the housing problem has been solved - 4 buildings have been commissioned.
Immediately after the completion of the first reconstruction, the second begins - to create capacity for the production of 12,000 units. cars per year. - In 1972-1975 The installation of an overhead-push assembly conveyor is underway - the second in the USSR. First conveyor of this type was designed, manufactured and installed in the USSR Italian company Fiat at the Volzhsky Automobile Plant in Tolyatti.
After some time, the ErAZ production association was created, which included: Yerevan Automobile Plant - the parent enterprise; Yerevan spare parts plant; Yerevan Forklift Plant; Yerevan hydraulic equipment plant; a forklift plant under construction in Charentsavan.
The association is faced with the task, along with the production of ErAZ vehicles and 4022 forklifts, to master the production of 4091 forklifts with a capacity of 1 ton and a 2 ton model developed by the Lvov GSKB Autoloader.
Along with RAF, UAZ, VAZ, work began on the creation of electric vehicles at ErAZ-e, 26 samples were manufactured and sent for testing to the Moscow Automotive Plant. The ErAZ-3730 was recognized as the most convenient for cars to operate due to the large volume of the body. But due to imperfections in power supplies, work on the ErAZ-e was stopped. An international symposium was held in Armenia with the participation of major specialists from the USSR and the USA, in which YerAZ specialists also took part. - In November 1983, the ErAZ association was reorganized into the Charentsavan production association ArmAuto, and Vladimir Galustovich Nersesyan was appointed director of the Yerevan Automobile Plant. Work has been done on technological preparation, reconstruction, creation of capacities and mastering the production of vehicles of the new ErAZ-3730 model. The production volume of 762B cars is from 12,000 units. increased to 16,000 units. in year.
- In May 1984 ErAZ becomes an independent enterprise.
- In 1984-1987 The body assembly and welding shop is being reconstructed. Welding lines for the ErAZ-3730 car body and a system of overhead push conveyors with a total length of up to 3.5 km are installed. The reconstruction of the press shop is nearing completion.
- In 1984, a cooperation agreement was signed with the Lubinsk Automobile Plant “Zhuk” (Poland).
- In 1986, the ErAZ-37301 van with an isothermal body, manufactured on the basis of the ErAZ-3730 van, was demonstrated for the first time in the history of the plant at an international exhibition abroad in Poznan, Poland.
During the work of Eduard Surenovich Babajanyan (plant director from 1989-1991), the reconstruction of the body production of the new ErAZ-3730 model car was completed. Ties with NKR are being strengthened. The reconstruction of the body assembly and welding shop is nearing completion. - From 1991 until the closure of the plant, Hamlet Stepanovich Harutyunyan worked as director. During his work, new modifications of mass-produced vehicles were mastered, and mass production of the ErAZ-3730 model and its modifications was mastered.
- In 1992, based on the serially produced ErAZ-762V vehicle, new modifications were created and produced: ErAZ-762 VGP (cargo-passenger), ErAZ-762 VDP (double-pickup) and a trailer for passenger cars.
- In May 1995, the plant was privatized and a joint stock company was created open type"ErAZ". Plant director Hamlet Harutyunyan was elected as the first president of ErAZ JSC. Connections are being established with foreign countries. A sanatorium-type recreation center is being created in Jermuk. The recovery from the crisis begins.
- In 1995 for a children's recreation park railway In Yerevan, 2 sets of recreational road trains are being manufactured.
- In November 2002, ErAZ OJSC, at the request of creditors, was declared bankrupt by the Economic Court of the Republic of Armenia.
- And in November 2004 it was sold at auction. Mik Metal became the new owner of the former ErAZ automobile plant, and then ErAZ OJSC.
- EpA3-3945. There was only 480 kg left for the load. The main disadvantage of this modification was the absence of a second row of doors, which made access difficult. rear seats. ErAZ-3218, minibus. EpA3-3945, mobile unit technical control Traffic police It is not difficult to guess that such control was under the jurisdiction of the State Traffic Inspectorate, which is why the car looked accordingly: blue and yellow body paint, the inscription “GAI” on the hood.
The purpose of the cargo-passenger version of the van (with a double cabin and a shortened cargo compartment) has changed over time. In the early 70s, designers saw this modification as a training machine. In market conditions, cargo-passenger vans turned out to be in demand without any special filling (EpA3-37308). And at the end of the 80s, at the NAMI test site, preliminary tests were carried out on two prototype cargo-passenger models EpA3-3945, officially called a “mobile technical control point.” Technical control, according to the creators, was to be carried out “for technical condition components, assemblies and systems vehicles affecting safety traffic in terms of their compliance with the requirements of standards related to ensuring traffic safety.”
As a training vehicle, however, the practice of operating Polish Zuk vans with this type of body in the USSR showed that cargo-passenger modifications of light-duty vehicles are in demand by many organizations.
With development in the territory former USSR market economy, the number of potential buyers of EpA3-37308 has increased sharply due to private entrepreneurs. - Minibus based on the 3730 family chassis was produced in three interior layout options. Common to all three options was the absence of a right front seat (to the right of the driver), which allowed free access to the cabin from the sidewalk. At the same time, the right door was made hinged, not sliding. In addition, the first two rows passenger seats were also arranged in the same way: two seats on the left side of the aisle, one on the right.
After the collapse of the USSR, the development of some modifications became impossible due to the loss of economic ties. - Initial modification with a “double cabin”. The rear cabin layout varied.
In the first version, designed for nine passengers, the third row of passenger seats exactly repeated the first two (2+1). At the same time, it was possible to get into the salon through the right wing of the rear hinged door.
In the second option (for ten passengers) the passage in back row covered with another seat. Thus, rear doors were completely blocked.
And finally, in the third version (also ten-seater), two seats were placed behind the backs of the outer seats of the second row along the sides facing each other. This made it possible to enter the salon not only through the side door, but also through both rear doors.
- In the first half of the 70s, the country carried out an industry program to create electric vehicles - this direction seemed promising to some officials.
In 1974, the Yerevan enterprise joined the Riga, Ulyanovsk and Volzhsky automobile plants that participated in the project. According to some reports, a total of 26 experimental EpA3-3731 electric vehicles were manufactured on the EpA3-3730 platform. All of them, along with experimental analogues from other plants, were tested in Moscow, including operational ones. Ultimately, the Yerevan electric cars were considered more successful than their counterparts, but the project was canceled due to the bulkiness and insufficient capacity of the batteries available in those years.
- Rechargeable batteries 96-EIZH-200 was driven by an electric motor with a power of 22 kW. The maximum speed of the electric vehicle was 60 km/h, and the range was only 45 km.
The plant was built to increase the production of RAF-977 delivery vans and minibuses. The documentation was transferred from Riga to Yerevan, and in 1966 the first ErAZ-762s were assembled, outwardly no different from the Rafiks.
While the RAF already in the mid-70s switched to more modern model RAF-2203 “Latvia”, at ErAZ archaic buses with rounded shapes continued to be built right up to 1996! So almost all such cars that can still be found on Russian roads, - these are precisely Yerevan, not Riga products, although the Yerevan plant ended its existence in 2002.
But, of course, ErAZ had a design department that was engaged in new developments, albeit not always successful.
1966, ErAZ-762. The first version of the delivery van, still without side stiffeners. Produced from 1966 to 1976 under RAF documentation.
1971, ErAZ-762R. Refrigerated van based on a modified ErAZ-762A. These cars had almost no external differences from the 762.
1976, ErAZ-762B. IN new version The van received stiffening ribs and a “relief” of the body. The car was produced from 1976 to 1981, when it was replaced by another modification.
1981, ErAZ-762V. The most popular version of the van received new uniform stiffening ribs and a number of modifications to the chassis, as well as the replacement of some units. It is precisely these ErAZs that have mainly survived to this day.
1988, ErAZ-762VGP. Appeared in the late 80s passenger bus based on a van. The “facelift” is also clearly visible (the picture shows a modification from the mid-90s).
ErAZ-762G. Truck version with wooden body.
1972, ErAZ-762P. Tractor of a recreational road train.
1992, ErAZ-762VDP. The five-seat cargo-passenger pickup truck appeared in the early 90s, when the plant, which found itself in an extremely difficult economic situation, needed to somehow “spin.”
1968, ErAZ-773. In fact, they began looking for a replacement for the 762 back in the late 60s. One of the popular models was the 773rd.
1970, ErAZ-763 “Armenia”. The fight for the right to be next was won by model 763, and a full-size prototype was built in 1970. This vehicle arrived on the assembly line with a huge delay - 15 years later, although initially it was more advanced than even the RAF.
1974, electric car ErAZ-3731. The first batch of 26 bonnets. Unfortunately, until 1985, ErAZ bonnets were produced exclusively in small batches for the needs of specific enterprises.
In the sixties, in the USSR there arose a need to service trade and service enterprises - post offices, public catering establishments, consumer services and other sectors of the economy involved in the transportation of low-tonnage and small cargo.
The use of trucks like the GAZ-51 for this purpose brought huge losses to the country’s economy, because often tens of liters of government fuel had to be spent for the sake of several hundred kilograms or small-sized cargo.
And even though gasoline in the USSR literally cost a penny, throughout the entire country there was a large overconsumption of fuel, used irrationally. And, as you know, a penny saves a ruble.
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State approach
The issue was resolved at the level of the country's top leadership - that is, the Council of Ministers. Thanks to the calculations of economists, it became obvious to government members that National economy early sixties, he urgently needed his own car - no longer an ordinary passenger car, but not yet big truck. At that time, the RAF-977 minibus was already being produced in Riga, in which officials saw the future van.
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Indeed, produced on the components and assemblies of the Volga M-21 passenger minibus was perfectly suited to the role of a delivery van. It was enough just to “not glass” the passenger compartment and not install seats, and there was enough space inside for about a ton of cargo. Which, in fact, was what was required to be achieved.
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It is important that this approach did not require the development of a new car, which, in turn, also saved not only time, but also money.
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| Prototype RAF-977K | ||
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Already in 1962, on the basis of a regular RAF minibus, a prototype of the RAF-977K cargo van was made according to the simple scheme described above. The vehicle was declared suitable for use as a delivery van, but...
RAF itself did not have production facilities that would allow required quantities produce such cars.
From Latvia to Armenia
An unexpected solution was found: at the very end of 1964, the Council of Ministers of the Armenian USSR adopted a decision “On organizing in Yerevan, in the buildings under construction of the Autoloader plant, a plant for the production of vans with a carrying capacity of 0.8-1.0 tons.”
It is clear that no one in the Armenian ministry would have issued such an order just like that, without a corresponding directive “from the very top.” By another decree No. 795, the same Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic renames the Autoloader plant into the Yerevan Automobile Plant (abbreviated as ErAZ). At that time, the construction of a plant for the production of forklifts was at an early stage when changes in the profile and specialization of production had not yet particularly affected anything.
Employees of the newly formed enterprise were trained at RAF and UAZ, and after the production building was built and the machines were installed, production began in Yerevan... of that same RAF-977K, called ErAZ-762. After all, earlier Riga bus builders handed over to ErAZ specialists all technical documentation for the production of this model, and specifically a cargo van, and not a passenger minibus.
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Employees of the Yerevan enterprise went to the May Day demonstration in 1966 in brand new vans of their own production. So the Riga car received an “Armenian registration”, and the small mountainous republic had its own automobile industry.
It should be noted that by that time the shortcomings of the RAF-977D minibus had long been known to both factory specialists and ordinary users of the Rafiks.
Alas, the single-volume car, built on the units of a Volga passenger car, did not have the most successful weight distribution, since the front axle of the cabover car was heavily loaded. In addition, actual operation of the vehicles revealed insufficient rigidity of the body, which simply began to collapse under active loads.
To somehow correct the situation, the designers undertook whole line improvements. Yes, inside the body cargo compartment and the passenger cabin was separated by a strong metal partition, which also played the role of a kind of amplifier, increasing the torsional rigidity of the body. For the same purpose, a pair of single-leaf doors were provided for access to the cargo compartment - on right side body and rear.
The floor and sides were reinforced with special wooden slats, and for the convenience of loading and unloading luggage at any time of the day, two lampshades were provided in the cargo compartment, which turned on both automatically (when the doors were opened) and using a toggle switch. In addition, exhaust ventilation slots were provided on the side walls - after all, as you know, there are a variety of loads.
Tests carried out in Latvia showed the professional suitability of the vehicle with a load capacity of about 850 kg.
Yes, it was not possible to reach a ton in the process of transforming the minibus into a van, but it was not possible to squeeze more out of the Volga units and the load-bearing body. However, such an indicator for the machine, based on the specifics of its future work, was quite enough. It is important that the control gas consumption in comparison with a full-size truck turned out to be half as much, and Ulyanovsk cabovers could not boast fuel efficiency at the level of a Riga van.
Modernization and growth of production
The first batch of 66 copies of ErAZ-762 was produced in December 1966, and in the first two years of ErAZ’s activity, under the leadership of the head of the mechanical engineering department of the Economic Council of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Zaven Simonyan, it was possible not only to create production capacity to produce 2,500 vehicles per year, but also to reach the level of 1,000 manufactured vans per year.
Further - more: under the leadership of Stepan Ivanyan, who headed ErAZ from 1968 to 1973, production capacity increased significantly - after the first reconstruction, 6,500 ErAZs began to be assembled per year. This is largely due to the launch of a new building with an area of 26 thousand square meters. m and the completion of the construction of the press-body production, which made it possible to sharply increase the volume of products produced by the plant. After all, now absolutely all body panels were produced in Yerevan, and not brought from RAF, as was previously the case.
No sooner had the first reconstruction been completed than the company began the second phase to double its production capacity - that is, to 13,000 cars.
Interestingly, in the mid-seventies, ErAZ became the second enterprise in the USSR to operate a push-and-hang assembly conveyor. The first plant with such a conveyor was, of course, VAZ. This technology for the Volzhsky Automobile Plant was developed, supplied and installed by the Italian partner Fiat, but in the case of ErAZ they did it on their own - the conveyor was made by Minsk SKB-3.
Launching a new assembly line and a press shop with a German press with a force of 500 tons also influenced the structure Yerevan plant: in 1976, the ErAZ production association was created, which included both an automobile plant as the parent enterprise, and factories for the production of forklifts, hydraulic equipment and automobile spare parts.
A characteristic feature of the activities of the Yerevan Automobile Plant is constant modernization and growth in production volumes. In the early eighties, up to 12,000 vans were assembled at ErAZ per year, thanks to which the hundred thousandth ErAZ-762 vehicle was produced in April 1983.
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The installation of new lines and another reconstruction of the body production and press shop made it possible to increase the production volume of cars to 16,000 units by the mid-eighties.
Punching games
What about the minibus itself? The ErAZ-762, after a number of minor upgrades, was produced for exactly three decades - until 1966. During this time, the car became infinitely outdated, but in the eighties it was still in demand in the USSR as a utilitarian delivery van.
Cars of the first years of production, produced before 1971, could be distinguished by the smooth walls of the sides. There was also a version with an isothermal body, which received the index 762I and was produced in small quantities, while the 762P refrigerator, developed a year later, remained a prototype.
The modernization of body and press production did not fail to affect the appearance of the car, which received stampings in the form of false cones on the sides of the body for greater rigidity. This modification bore the index 762A.
In 1971, both the first and second modifications even received a pair of awards - an Honorary Diploma of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce at the Moscow international exhibition "Intorgmash" and a third degree VDNKh diploma.
The next update affected not only the body, where a couple more new bulges appeared: since 1976, ErAZs with the designation 762B were transferred to units of the more modern Volga GAZ-24, since the previous “donor” GAZ M-21 was discontinued back in 1970.
In 1979, ErAZs began to be equipped with an engine from the modification for the GAZ-24-01 taxi, running on A-76 gasoline. Moreover, in the Union, the enterprises that owned them used this kind of fuel everywhere, and not “ninety-third”. ERAZ-762V also received concave lines on the sides of the body and differed from earlier versions in the presence of reverse lights.
In 1988, ErAZ “remembered its minibus roots” own car: production of a five-seater cargo-passenger van with the VGP index with a carrying capacity of 575 kg began in Yerevan. Due to its versatility, in the late eighties this machine was in good demand among cooperators and so-called “shop workers”.
Alas, the collapse of the USSR put an end to the fate of ErAZ: inflation, social unrest, the severance of economic ties of the former Soviet republics and the loss of a huge market with a solvent customer in the person of a huge state led to the fact that ErAZ began to be produced less and less - production volumes dropped to half a thousand copies per year.
In 1992, however, the management of the enterprise and the enthusiasts who worked there tried to somehow save the situation with the help of the five-seater ErAZ-762VDP pickup truck, but the aged car, like the enterprise that produced it, were simply doomed in the new economic conditions. No attempts to modernize helped appearance cars with the help of plastic trim, nor barter supply schemes, which the Armenian enterprise constantly resorted to in the first half of the nineties in order to survive and stay afloat.
It’s hard to believe, but in neighboring Ukraine they still offer a couple of dozen ErAZ-762s on the Internet! Owners want about 650-800 dollars, that is, approximately 50,000 rubles, for cars that have been pretty beaten up by life and mercilessly “scarred” 1 / 3
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In 1995, the aged and well-deserved ErAZ was finally taken out of production, and the Yerevan Automobile Plant itself, before it finally went bankrupt in 2002, for several more years in small batches produced the successor of the 762 with the index 3730. But this is a completely different story that deserves a separate story.
As you know, ErAZ for a long time, from the mid-60s, produced only one model - the ErAZ-762 van, essentially the RAF 977. But in the early 70s in Yerevan they began to slowly develop their own vehicle, which a few years later would be called ErAZ-3730 . The first samples of the 3730 were ready back in the late 70s, but mass production was never really established. Since about 1992, the plant has been producing these vans in small quantities, without giving up hope of launching mass production. But something always got in the way - war, lack of energy, lack of money to modernize the conveyor...
When I arrived at ErAZ in the spring of 1997, the director there was a respectable Armenian man, Hamlet Stepanovich Harutyunyan.
He considered himself the third person in the republic - after the president and the chairman of the local KGB. It is possible that this was the case - the influence of Hamlet Stepanovich was quite noticeable. True, then, in March 1997, there was nowhere to demonstrate it in full - impoverished Armenia was simply trying to survive, not really thinking about car production.
By the way, I saw new ErAZs on the streets of Yerevan. Not to say in abundance, but there were quite a lot of them, I did not expect. I have never seen this car in Moscow. They said that 3730 was in good demand among local transport workers, it seems like one ErAZik replaces six Volgas in terms of capacity and efficiency. I don’t know how correct this comparison is, but there were enough ErAZ minibuses in Armenia.
But the plant did not work. For a simple reason - there was no heating. Technological process requires running water, but it is simply frozen. Therefore, for several years in a row, the ErAZ “fell asleep” in the winter and “thawed out” only in the spring. When I arrived, there were only a few people at the plant - the director, his driver, chief designer, commercial director and perhaps someone else. There were almost no workers, the workshops were empty, the lights weren’t even on. It was very cold everywhere.
Here is the chief designer, whose name I don’t remember after many years:
We walked around the empty enterprise and looked into the small-scale assembly workshop. In fact - large garage, where several people, manually and reluctantly, made another ErAZik. It seemed that this work would take forever, the pace of production was such that the process was more important to them than the result. They showed an armored car made on the 762 chassis; it stood in the back of the garage, crowded with other cars; it was impossible to even really approach it. Like, they made it on the order of a local businessman, but either he ran out of money, or something else happened... In short, the armored car was stuck at the factory, unredeemed. I also saw how they made a pickup truck on an old chassis - apparently, there was a stock of components left at the factory and they had to be put somewhere. But they made this machine the same way, a teaspoon per hour.
I photographed the car a little:
And then we went for a ride in ErAZik around Yerevan. There was a car at the factory that performed representative functions and was decorated with Armenian ideas about beauty: curtains and a table in the salon, an openwork roof rack, wheels painted in White color, striped body paint. And, most importantly: right on the “dashboard” there was a Cadillac emblem, and on the steering wheel hub there was a BMW emblem. The seats in the front, if I'm not mistaken, were also BMW ones.
I drove for a bit, but not knowing the city, I gave up my seat to the factory driver. Hamlet Stepanovich, of course, traveled with us and chattered incessantly. He was then occupied with one problem - what car to buy for himself. Someone offered him a used Audi 100 and he really wanted it. But traditionally, the entire directorate drove Volgas - because ErAZ had strong ties with GAZ, the aggregate base was common. Hamlet Stepanovich personally knew Pugin. He said that they know the Volga better than the GAZ workers themselves and can make a “candy” out of a production “turd” car. Replace shock absorbers and springs, change rear gearbox... I don’t remember all the improvements, I only remember that the then director’s black Volga 31029 really drove excellently. And Hamlet Stepanovich was torn – and he wants an Audi, and in Nizhny they started making a new Volga - 3110. And he wants that too. And he kept pestering me with the question: well, tell me, tell me what’s better, huh?
Then they told me about two projects - to assemble Muscovites pickup trucks and GAZelles in Yerevan. On the first point, it seems that all the agreements were in good working order, fortunately Asatryan, Harutyunyan’s old corefan, was already the director at AZLK. Not a bad idea, by the way: pickup trucks would not be in demand in Moscow, and it would not be easy to organize their production. And Armenia is a very capacious market for such cars. And about GAZelles, too, they supposedly already agreed with Pugin. “Just don’t tell anyone yet, okay? It's too early".
And then we went to Sevan. I asked for it, I wanted to see this iconic lake. We arrived, wandered around the once resort, and now completely deserted area, and looked at the monument to the heroine of the Armenian epic - a girl waiting on the shore for her lover.
On an Armenian scale, they rented an entire room in one of the local restaurants, which, it seemed, had not seen visitors all winter. They brought hake, freshly caught from Sevan. They drank, and heavily, like a man. There were five of us, together with the driver - the entire management of the plant and me, the idiot. For some reason I remember this short walk along the shore of Sevan and dinner in a deserted restaurant more than the plant.
The history of ErAZ ended around the same time. They never launched the assembly line for 3730, they collected credits, but had nothing to give, you can’t assemble many ErAZs with your hands, even in the summer. In 2002, the plant went bankrupt and I don’t know where Hamlet Stepanovich went.
I only remember that about six months after that trip, several messages were recorded on my answering machine. Contract. A voice with a characteristic Armenian accent said: “Serozha, this is Hamlet. I am in Moscow". Then again: “Serozha, this is Hamlet. I am in Moscow". And so many times. Hamlet Stepanovich did not guess to name either the telephone number or the place where he was staying.
In addition, the enterprise from Yerevan was “tied” to suppliers and subcontractors - both to the manufacturer of body panels from Latvia and to the Gorky Automobile Plant. As a result, many situational “buts” did not allow the enterprise management to reach the planned production volumes. And in general, the attitude of the Ministry of Automotive Industry towards ErAZ, as well as towards many other similar “non-passenger” plants, was peculiar - financing and support were provided on a residual basis. Let’s not forget that at the end of those same sixties, a huge auto giant was launched in the USSR in Tolyatti, where almost all the forces and money of the industry were thrown. This dealt a noticeable blow to both and other leading enterprises in the automotive industry. What can we say about such “pot-bellied little things” as factories that produced 5-6 thousand cars a year! On the scale of a huge country - mere crumbs.
Based on the already abundant operating experience of the ErAZ-762 and the current situation with production, it became obvious to the management, who was not indifferent to the fate of the native plant, that they first needed to get rid of dependence on the supply of components, and only then move on to the development and implementation of a new model. Alas, after the pressing and stamping production in Yerevan finally reached the required capacity, a directive was issued from “above” - to stamp parts for RAF vehicles in Armenia! This again increased the load on the plant and made it impossible for it to go further.
Pride of the Nation
However, ErAZ did not sit idle. After all, initially a team of enthusiasts was formed there, for whom automobile production in Armenia was not just a functional duty, but a matter of life and honor, a task associated with personal ambitions and even national pride. That is why at ErAZ from the very beginning they worked on the principle “we will do the best we can”, and not “however it turns out.” Restrictions on the part of the relevant ministry in a certain way tied the hands only of production workers and technologists, but not of design engineers, for whom the production of just an “Armenian Rafik” without windows and seats” was clearly not enough.
The Department of the Chief Designer (OGK) was formally supposed to be involved in improving the same ErAZ-762, which the company’s specialists carefully and responsibly did. After all, with the release of each new “letter” modification (ErAZ-762A, -762B, -762V), the car became stronger, more durable and even more attractive in appearance. But at the same time, the designers introduced dozens of generally invisible from the outside, but such important “notices” - that is, upgrades and “bug fixes” of previous modifications. Nevertheless, who, if not the engineers who carried out the improvement, knew for certain that the “seven hundred and sixty-second” had exhausted itself, as they say, conceptually, almost at the very beginning of its journey. After all, it was never designed to transport a ton of cargo - neither the design of the supporting body nor the components and assemblies of the usual “twenty-first” Volga contributed to this. And no matter how much you tie up a flimsy structure with twigs, it still won’t become a brick house...
My own game
Of course, they couldn’t completely get rid of the old platform in Yerevan - there was simply nowhere to get a new one power unit and chassis components. However, the delivery van needed, first of all, a completely different body and a more rational layout.
Work on the project was carried out not alone, but together with NAMI engineers and NIIAT specialists, for whom similar tasks were an excellent opportunity to move from theory to practice.
The design of a cargo van must be absolutely original, without reference to the layout of an existing minibus. Its main highlight was the frame instead of a monocoque body.
After the ErAZ-762, it became obvious that a vehicle for transporting goods, even a small one, needs a solid base - a spar frame, since the supporting body does not provide the required rigidity and mechanical strength.
The ErAZ-763 prototype was distinguished by a cabover cab, behind which there was an all-metal cargo compartment of a peculiar shape, which in its linear dimensions exceeded the front part. Original part: on the right side there were sliding doors - but not for access to the cargo compartment, but for access to the cabin! For loading and unloading luggage, double hinged doors were provided at the rear of the car.
Prototype ErAZ-763 “Armenia” made in a single copy (1970)
However, it turned out that in order to get rid of the second chronic problem of the old ErAZ, namely the overloaded front axle, we will have to make the car not a cabover, but a semi-hood layout. Due to a different redistribution of masses, the load on the front axle became much less, because the cabin moved inside the wheelbase. The very first sea trials showed that the ErAZ-763A has much better weight distribution. It is interesting that these prototypes were unified in terms of their unit base not with the Volga, as was previously the case, but with... Muscovites (in terms of engine) and Ulyanovsk SUVs (drive axle and gearbox).
During the “research”, the next version of the prototypes appeared with the index ErAZ-763B, in which the designers nevertheless returned to the “Volgov” engine. According to the new industry standard of 1966, the future van received the index 3730 and was designed for payload in 1,000 kg. It was assumed that the new car would have several modifications with different purposes: a minibus, ambulance, minibus, a refrigerator, an insulated van and even a cottage on wheels!
Mobile technical control point for traffic police ErAZ-3945 Looking back almost half a century, you understand: ErAZ designers, together with scientific specialists, developed a car with exactly the same layout, which soon became practically the only one in this class.
A typical example: the little-known, but at the same time legendary American postal van Grumman LLV, famous for its indestructibility, both in its layout and appearance very similar to ErAZ-3730. But Yerevan car was designed 12 years earlier!
However, everything was smooth only on paper. Prototypes, as expected, were tested in various climatic zones of the USSR and already in 1973 passed state acceptance, receiving a recommendation for mass production.
And then... perhaps the ErAZ was the first Soviet car that “never found its way to the assembly line” after approval at the state level. This happened to, and many others Soviet cars, which appeared in an unfortunate period - just before the collapse of the USSR. However, a completely different story happened to ErAZ, which even sounds somewhat implausible for the happily stagnant seventies.
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The new van fell victim to the old one, which the country still needed. To launch the ErAZ-3730, the plant would have to abandon production previous model, since the capacity for parallel production of new and old cars ErAZ simply did not have them - and they were not expected. Due to the difference in platforms within the same conveyor, the machines did not get along - with the exception of the motor, they had nothing in common. This means that a radical readjustment and even replacement of body production, updating of the press shop, and so on were required. Of course, this required money – and a lot of it.
If other Soviet automobile factories saved the prospects of exporting new models abroad, the Yerevan enterprise could not count on this - its “crumbs” in the form of tens of thousands of vans a year were easily swallowed by the huge domestic market.
It was also impossible to stop the production of the old ErAZ for the reason that the plant in Armenia was a supplier of “body parts” for RAF vehicles, which were still being produced in full force in 1973, because the new “Latvia” appeared only three years later - in 1976. This means that changing the model in Yerevan would also cause damage to the Baltic states. This is the kind of internal production auto-geopolitics, multiplied by planned administrative macroeconomics...
Sopor
Eventually new model as if it was “stuck” between successfully passing state acceptance and launching into mass production. Not for a day, not for two - for years. From time to time, small batches of new vans were assembled at ErAZ, as they say, “piece by piece,” often using them to “promote” a new product, which by that time was already several years old. Fortunately, the angular body was designed so well that it looked “out of time.”
In an effort to somehow get the coveted “ticket” to the assembly line, ErAZ even got involved and converted two dozen of their cars “electrically” - the topic of electric vehicles in the USSR started in the mid-seventies, and Yerevan designers became pioneers of new technologies, ahead of Even the Volzhsky Automobile Plant with its .
The Olympics-80 was also not ignored, which was served by specially trained 10 ErAZ-3702 refrigerators. In a word, the new (more precisely, almost ten-year-old!) van was “shown” wherever and whenever possible, trying to arouse interest not only among the Ministry of Automotive Industry, but also among potential consumers.
Thus, participation in the Avtoprom-85 exhibition brought the van a bronze medal, and a year later, as part of cooperation with Polish plant The Lublin insulated van ErAZ-37301 was also shown to the Poles, sending the vehicle to an exhibition in Poznan.
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Until the mid-eighties, the production of old ErAZ vehicles was constantly increasing, reaching 15 thousand vehicles per year. But the poor “thirty-seven-thirty” remained out of work, staying “between heaven and earth” in the form of an eternal prototype, which “one of these days, or even earlier” will be put on the assembly line. But the prosperous time for the automobile industry of the USSR, as well as for the country itself, had already, in fact, ended, although no one suspected it then.
During the period that ErAZ was in pre-production condition, the model underwent some improvements that improved its consumer qualities. It's a pity that the consumer never appreciated them.
After all, since 1987, the auto industry began to gradually “cut off oxygen” in terms of finances, and then problems began in the Soviet state itself, which soon broke up into several independent countries. Armenia was far from being in a better position, so launching a new model into mass production was out of the question - the enterprise at least just needed to survive, having waited out the difficult time with the old ErAZ. Moreover, due to lost connections and broken “strings” - both in the supply of components and in sales commercial vehicles– the Yerevan enterprise was on the verge of collapse.
When the “eternally alive” ErAZ-762 finally retired in the mid-nineties, within the framework of the activities of ErAZ OJSC it was finally possible to begin serial production of the ErAZ-3730. This happened in 1995 - just imagine, 22 years after positive recommendation State Commission! The route of the van to the assembly line turned out to be long, like Moses...
Alas, the life of the assembly line itself was short-lived: the van was produced from 1995 until the early 2000s - until ErAZ finally went bankrupt in 2002. However, in last years It was difficult to call the manual release of single copies “production.”
In the late nineties, vans enjoyed some success in domestic market– well, where else can you buy a new one for a little over 5,000 dollars? cargo van, capable of carrying a ton of luggage? Armenian buyers also liked utility vehicles that could carry six people and half a ton of luggage. However, like the enterprise itself, ErAZ was simply doomed “in free floating.” Successful platform, but foreign units, small production capacity, lack of access to foreign markets– in fact, the national pride of the Armenian automobile industry has remained a “thing in itself”, which no one really knows.
Could the future of the project have been successful if it had been put into production?
