The ZIS-115 is a 4-door saloon from ZiL, built from 1948 to 1949, in a decade split by war, when civilian production stopped and restarted. Under the bonnet: 6.0 L ZIS-115 I8. The total made was 1.
The story
The ZIS-115 is a Soviet-built, armored version of the ZIS-110 limousine, designed and built especially for Joseph Stalin. A total of 32 of the cars were manufactured between 1948 and 1949. The heavily armored car's design was based on the American 1942 Packard Super Eight. The car weighed over 4 tonnes, with windows made of glass nearly 8 cm (3 in) thick (each of which weighed over 200 kg [440 lb]) were powered by a hydraulic system. Its 6.0-litre (366 cu in) straight-eight engine generated 140 hp (103 kW) with a top speed of 121 km/h (75 mph). Stalin, wary of assassination, always rode in the rear of the car, seated between two armed bodyguards. He frequently changed the route driven from his home in Kuntsevo to the Kremlin. Usage of this vehicle was seen in other countries, as Stalin donated a ZIS-115 to Chairman Mao Zedong due to the lack of armored Chinese vehicles suitable for the purpose of transporting high-ranking officials. After Stalin's death in 1953, the armored ZIS limousines continued to be used for many years by successive Soviet leaders. In 1955, Nikita Khrushchev donated two of these vehicles (which are on display in the Slovenian museum Bistra) to Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito.
Several ZIS-115's still exist in private collections and museums around the world. Russian leaders continued to occasionally use the cars as late as 1994.
What is underneath
Power comes from 6.0 L ZIS-115 I8. It weighs 4200 kg. It shifts through a 3-speed manual. 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 3760 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Moscow (Likhachov Plant), Soviet Union. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Porsche 356, the Citroën 2CV, the Chevrolet Bel Air — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the ZiL catalogue sit the 9P138 Grad-1 and the AMO-2.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the ZIS-115 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.