From Ruins to Racetracks: How the Soviet Union Built the Pobeda Sport Cars

In the early years of the Soviet Union, motorsport existed only in a rudimentary form. Purpose-built racing circuits were almost nonexistent, and competitions were often held on public highways. There were clear reasons for this reality.

Photo: Own work by Kirill Borisenko, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

GAZ-M-20 "Torpedo" at the 2025 ProDvizhenie festival

The country was recovering from the devastation of the Civil War, undergoing rapid industrialization, and building a massive defense industry. Resources and attention were focused elsewhere. Before World War II, there was no time for car racing, and during the war it disappeared entirely. Only after Victory did the Soviet state begin to treat motorsport as a serious, government-supported activity.

One of the first postwar decrees, issued in 1948, prohibited the use of foreign-made racing cars in competitions held on Soviet territory. This decision encouraged, and likely compelled, domestic automobile plants to develop their own sports models. The Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) became one of the key participants in this effort.

The First Championship

The first official Soviet racing championship took place in 1950. For these early postwar competitions, engineers built a race car based on the civilian GAZ-M20 Pobeda. The project was led by Alexey Andreyevich Smolin, a former aircraft designer who headed the Gorky design bureau.

The car was named Pobeda-Sport and received the factory designation GAZ SG-1. Technically, it remained closely related to the standard Pobeda sedan, which would later become legendary. However, the roadster differed in important ways.

The most noticeable change was the body. It featured smoother, elongated lines designed to improve aerodynamics. The first prototype had two doors, a low roof, and small plexiglass windows.

The next version underwent further refinement. The roof was removed entirely, turning the car into a cabriolet-like roadster. The doors were eliminated to reduce drag even more. Engineers in Gorky did not have access to a wind tunnel, but later studies showed that their aerodynamic instincts were largely correct.

Engine and Transmission

The engine was bored out to increase displacement to 2.49 liters, boosting output to 75 horsepower at 4,100 rpm. The standard Pobeda engine produced 52 horsepower from a 2.12-liter displacement at 3,600 rpm.

Engineers also increased the compression ratio, replaced the single carburetor with two K22 carburetors, and added an oil cooler.

The transmission remained largely stock, although the driveshaft was redesigned into a two-piece unit with an additional intermediate support.

Between 1950 and 1956, the factory built five Pobeda-Sport roadsters. Later, the name was expanded to include Torpedo, after the factory racing team.

Sporting success was limited. In 1956, drivers A. Efremychev and V. Mosolov finished second in a circuit road race using the final example of the car.

The Fate of the Pobeda Sport

No original Pobeda-Sport cars survived intact to the present day. However, thanks to enthusiasts and a restoration team led by Ivan Panderin, a full-scale engineering replica was created in 2015.

The replica is not an exact copy. It uses a GAZ-24 engine with a 2.5-liter displacement and a four-speed transmission instead of the original three-speed unit. Visually, however, the car closely matches the original design.

The replica was first shown to the public in autumn 2015 at the Ilya Sorokin Gallery Oldtimer exhibition.

Other Pobeda-Based Sports Cars

Smolin believed that a more advanced racing machine was possible. After completing the Pobeda-Sport roadster, he began work on a true single-purpose race car, the SG-2.

This model used a heavily modified Pobeda engine producing 105 horsepower from a 2.5-liter displacement. Engineers added a mechanical supercharger from Roots and reduced the car's weight to 1.1 tons, a notable achievement for the time.

The SG-2 resembled a long, pointed capsule, similar to science-fiction designs from later decades. Despite reaching speeds of up to 190 km/h, it lost in competition to the ZIS-112, which could reach 200 km/h.

The Final Experiment: GAZ SG-3

The last project led by Smolin was the GAZ SG-3, a machine that looked more like an aircraft fuselage without wings. Engineers installed an engine derived from a MiG-17 jet fighter, producing up to 1,000 horsepower.

The experiment nearly ended in disaster. Test driver M. Metelin narrowly survived a serious crash during trials. The car was destroyed, and it remains unknown whether any additional examples were ever built.

This marked the end of the Pobeda-based Soviet sports car program. While these machines achieved limited competitive success, they laid the groundwork for more advanced Soviet racing cars in the years that followed.