PAZ 8, the monster from the 30s
1951-1955
The world war has been over for a while now, engineers are busy designing the PAZ 200, the future all-purpose car, but regular people need something to move around with as well? This little thing might be enough to fulfill that position.
The PAZ 8 was originally a prototype designed just before WW2, and it was supposed to be in production already in 1940, but all of the resources went to military equipment. After the world war, the design was scrapped because the car had countless issues with… everything.
But the need for small, cheap passenger cars grew in the late 40s, and there weren’t enough engineers to design a brand new design, so the PAZ 8 was put under inspection again, and the most major flaws were fixed, and the frame was swapped to the PAZ 10-chassis that 200, 250, 10- models use, so this car also has a rear solid axle leaf spring/Double wishbone configuration like the other cars with the 10-chassis.
The engine was actually the same engine that the PAZ 10 has, except the bore is smaller, resulting the engine being 800cc instead.
The PAZ 8 is a rear-wheel driven car, and the car gets the mighty 27 horsepowers through a 3-speed manual gearbox, which was later used in the PAZ 10 as well. The car wasn’t exactly slow, it was just as quick as the 10.
The interior in these cars were really bare, just like 30s cars usually tend to be. There is a huge steering wheel, cloth seats, painted metal dash without a glovebox and a speedometer. That’s it.
The PAZ 8 handling is the really questionable part. The Cross-ply tires with the really wide sidewall and 12" inch rims, and the loose springs and vague steering made this car quite a challenge to drive. The car also has a tendency to oversteer if you move the steering wheel in a wrong way, which is even more present in the van variant, that has stiff rear springs.
Fuel consumption in this vehicle is terrible, period. the 16mpg rating is pretty bad even for a soviet car, considering the fact that this has a 800cc engine making 27 horsepower, and the car weighs just a bit over 600 kilogrammes.
The Van and Wagon variants of the car
The PAZ 8 Van is basically the same car as the 250, except with a tiny engine and a slightly different look to it.
The wagon and van variants also got thicker, 145 tires, to stand the larger load these cars might carry than the sedan with 135 tires.
The fuel consumption was even worse with these cars, as they were heavier, and they had reduced gearbox ratio, so the load they would carry could be moved by the engine alone. This also reduced the cars’ top speed from 124 kilometers per hour to around 110, and the engine is revving really high when it reaches the top speed.
The PAZ 8 never got an “Export” trim level, because the car would be only a placeholder until the PAZ 10 could be produced. The last PAZ 8’s were sold in 1955, and it was never a huge sales success, as the car was known to be unreliable, extremely prone to rust, and borderline dangerous to drive.