Start with what the GAZ-12 ZIM is: a Sedan, phaeton and ambulance with 3.5 L GAZ-12 I6, built from 1950 to 1960, at the height of the post-war boom. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Andrey Lipgart.
How it came about
The ZIM-12 (Russian: ЗИМ-12) was a Soviet full-size luxury car produced by the Gorky Automotive Plant (GAZ) from 1950 until 1960. It was the first luxury car produced by GAZ and the first one to have the famous leaping gazelle hood ornament.
The car was built to serve high and medium rank Soviet nomenklatura, but was also readily available as a taxi and ambulance. Unlike its successors, ZIM was the only Soviet executive class full-size car that was actually made available for private ownership. A total of 21,527 examples were built.
The hardware
The engine is 3.5 L GAZ-12 I6. On the scales it comes to 3800 -. Drive goes through a 3-speed manual with a hydrodynamic fluid coupling. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 3200 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the GAZ line-up the GAZ-12 ZIM has a clear place: it replaced the GAZ-11-73; it handed the line to the GAZ-13 Chaika; the factory was Gorky, Soviet Union. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Toyota Land Cruiser, the Chevrolet Bel Air, the Citroën 2CV. Its GAZ stablemates include the Chaika and the GAZ 24-24.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the GAZ-12 ZIM — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.