The GAZ-MM is a Sovietlight truck produced at the Gorki Auto Plant from 1938 to 1947, and then at the Ulyanovsky Auto Plant up to 1956.[1] The truck was a modernized and improved variant of the GAZ-AA that used the more powerful engine from the GAZ-M1, upgrading the vehicle's power to 50 hp. Other improvements included a reinforced suspension, alongside a new steering and cardan shaft. The styling also slightly changed, incorporating simple angular fenders, rather than the GAZ-AA's more rounded ones.[2][3]
Due to some engine shortages at the factory, some believe that the actual mass-production of the GAZ-MM trucks only started in 1940, since the GAZ-M1 engine needed to get firstly used in the GAZ-AAA and BA-10 vehicles.[4]
In 1942 a simplified variant of the truck, with the GAZ-MM-V index started getting produced, due to material shortages,[5] but limited production of the original "unsimplified" GAZ-MM continued. After the Great Patriotic War ended, the production of all the variants of the GAZ-MM fully restarted, but by that time the Gorki plant was producing the newer GAZ-51 trucks, and so it seemed that the days of the GAZ-MM were starting to end, as GAZ wanted to free-up production capacity at their factory.
Due to these reasons, the production of the GAZ-MM truck was transferred to the Ulyanovsky Auto Plant (UAZ), where production lasted until 1956.
Variants
Most of the variants of the GAZ-MM were just modernized variants of the ones from the GAZ-AA series.
GAZ-65: Prototype halftrack version. Produced in 1940.
