NAMI-1

The initial version of the project of the future NAMI-1 was created as a private initiative by a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Mechanics and Electrical Engineering Konstantin Andreyevich Sharapov for the diploma work "Subcompact car for Russian operating and production conditions", the theme of which was approved by its supervisor Professor Evgeny Alekseevich Chudakov in February 1925 of the year. According to Sharapov’s plan, the car was supposed to be an intermediate step between the Siklkar ( motokolyaska ) and an ordinary car, combining the simplified design of the first with the passenger capacity of the second.

Assessing the sophistication, originality and relevance of the ideas laid down by Sharapov in his brainchild, Chudakov advised his colleague from NAMI , Professor N. R. Brilling , to pay close attention to the young engineer and his works. As a result, after defending his graduation project, Sharapov continued to work on it already as a full-time employee of NAMI, where a group of enthusiasts overseen by Brilling was formed around him, including A. A. Lipgart , E. V. Charnko and other young specialists.

The first mention of NAMI-1 in the press dates back to August 1925 (published in the Motor magazine), and a full set of drawings was ready by the summer of the next, 1926. The final decision on production was made by the Avtotrest Automobile Plant State Trust (an organization that united the country's automobile enterprises in those years and, prior to the formation of the All-Union Association of Automotive Tractor Plants of WATO in 1930, actually managed this industry) by the beginning of 1927.

By May 1, 1927, at the Moscow State Automobile Plant No. 4 Avtomotor (subsequently Spartak), the first trial chassis of the NAMI-1 model was manufactured, tested a week later, still without a full body. Two more cars were assembled by September of the same year, and all of them were equipped with temporary bodies, angular and greatly simplified - one four-seater and one double. On September 16, these two prototypes went on a test run along the route Crimea-Moscow-Crimea, in which they went together with foreign cars (mainly Ford T models) and two motorcycles with a sidecar. The path was overcome without serious damage, and NAMI-1 showed a fairly high profitability - a full tank was enough for him for 300 km.

Chassis No. 1 and No. 3 after testing arrived at the AMO plant, where two body styles were re-executed for them, this time both four-seater. The first version of the body was more perfect, but also more difficult to manufacture, it had a neat appearance, three doors - one on the front right and two rear, two-section windshield and a small luggage room in the back. The second body was simplified - it had a more primitive finish and only two doors, but at the same time - a three-section windshield with separate left and right “windows”, the trunk was missing. None of them went into the series.

Along with the middle-class model - an analogue of Ford A (the future GAZ-A ), NAMI-1 was included in the promising type of Soviet cars for the First Five-Year Plan , the deployment of its production was entrusted to the same Avtomotor - Spartak plant. At the same time, in fact, Spartak, which had rather modest production capabilities, carried out only the final processing of parts and general assembly - for example, the AMO plant supplied most of the cast and forged billets, it also supplied body kits, which were subsequently assembled and finished at the 2nd Car Repair factory, and the production of small details and body fittings was undertaken by Auto Accessories Plant No. 5. It should be noted that in those years the body was considered a product, to a certain extent, separate from the car itself the motor vehicle with an engine, and generally supplied by enterprises; even Ford ordered many types of bodies for their cars from specialized body shops.

Of course, there was no talk of any conveyor - cars were assembled completely by hand, very slowly and with poor quality due to the low technical culture of the workers, as well as the moral and physical obsolescence of the production equipment. In addition, the series went extremely simplified version of the body, with angular shapes due to the use of bent sheet cladding panels, a solid windshield without ventilation "windows" and a very unsuccessful design and execution of the awning. The mass of the car in mass production was greatly overestimated (mainly due to the same body) - instead of the design 400 kg, its dry weight reached 700 kg or more.

In the 1927–28 economic year, the plant formed a reserve of parts for 125 cars, however, delays in providing the enterprise with a full set of drawings due to US fault and interruptions in the supply of imported components (tires, magnetos, starters) from Gostorg led to a slowdown in the deployment of full-fledged production - the first 50 cars were manufactured in October-November 1928, and were shipped to customers only in the spring of 1929.

A technical phenomenon new to the USSR — the deployment of serial production of a domestic passenger car, albeit on a small scale — immediately created a new organizational and economic problem: establishing a mechanism for purchasing motor vehicles by potential consumers, which were primarily considered by state and public organizations, and also agricultural and industrial cooperatives and private entrepreneurs (NEP was still walking in the country). Initially, it was assumed that organizations of interest and individuals would apply directly to the manufacturer or parent organization Avtotrest on the issue of acquisition - the latter even gave commercial advertising in print. However, due to production in extremely small quantities, the cost of NAMI-1 in mass production turned out to be very high, which affected its retail price, set for the first 100 cars in the amount of 8,000 rubles per unit (subsequently reduced to 5180 rubles) - for comparison, the cost Ford A domestic assembly in the same years was about 2000 rubles. This price was too high for potential buyers, even in conditions of a sharp shortage of any cars. As a result, almost all of the cars produced were centrally purchased by Avtodor and distributed among the garages of government departments. In operation, the cars caused a lot of complaints, and they were mainly caused not by the design of the car, but by its low level of performance.

One way or another, on October 1, 1930, not more than three years after the start of production, NAMI-1 production was discontinued by order of Avtotrest due to the fact that it was practically impossible to correct production defects in the existing economic and production conditions. In addition, there was a reluctance to spray financial and material and technical resources during the construction of a new, modern automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod with a design capacity of hundreds of thousands of cars per year. At that time, Spartak’s production facilities were transferred to AMO, with the reservation that the possibility of restoring NAMI-1 production could be restored at any time.

In total, for the years 1927-1930, 369 cars of this model were produced ^[1] . According to other sources - 512 cars for 1928-1931, or 190 cars for 1928-1929, of which 40 cars for 1928 and 150 for 1929 ^[2] .

Even before the start of production in Moscow, in 1927, a duplicate set of documentation at NAMI-1 was sold to the Izhora plant in Leningrad , a large industrial enterprise with extensive experience in the production of technically complex products. An automobile department was created at the plant, preparations for the production of parts began. However, a month later, all work in this direction was discontinued at the direction of Avtotrest "in anticipation of a better model" - which, however, did not follow (in particular, the analogue of the six-seater chaise Opel 10/45 PS was considered ).

By mid-1932, NATI (so by then it was renamed by US due to the fact that after the conversion of Avtotrest into WATO tractor work had been included in the institute’s program), under the guidance of the same Sharapov, a significantly improved modification of NAMI-1 was created , which had the designation NATI-2 (NATI-II; not to be confused with the semi-tracked NATI-2). It had a more powerful in-line four-cylinder air-cooled engine and a more aesthetically shaped body - still open, but already with four doors and bumpers, many other components and assemblies were significantly modified. Several prototypes of NATI-2 were made in 1933 in Izhevsk in the workshops of the Izhstal plant (according to another version, at a motorcycle plant; according to the third in Moscow) - only six engines, five bodies and five chassis, of which three were assembled pre-made car. However, the car did not go into series, since by that time the construction of the Nizhny Novgorod (future Gorkovsky) automobile plant was already in full swing, designed to produce 250-300 thousand cars a year, including 100 thousand medium-sized passenger cars, using well-developed foreign technology. Attempts by enthusiasts (in particular, Yu. Dolmatovsky ) to convince industry leaders of the advisability of parallel production of a small car, as complementing the model of an average displacement and more suitable for certain operating conditions, were unsuccessful. Economic calculations were also in favor of such a decision (the problem of the high cost of a small car in small-run production was fully preserved), as well as the sad experience of setting up NAMI-1 production at Spartak. NATI, on the other hand, concentrated its forces on work in a direction that was well paid at that time — truck projects for the armed forces.

The USSR Post in 1973 issued a postage stamp with the image of a NAMI-1 car.

NAMI-1 had a spinal frame in the form of a steel pipe with a diameter of 135 mm, which was rigidly attached to the flanges of the crankcases of the power unit and the main gear reducer. The pipe had great torsional rigidity and weighed significantly less than the traditional spar- type frame , and also saved on the absence of cardan joints. Due to the chosen chassis design, the rear suspension of the car was independent, in the form of swinging axles with a transverse spring. The front suspension remained dependent, on two longitudinal quarter-elliptic springs, and all its components, like the steering, were mounted on the crankcase of the power unit, which facilitated the assembly of the car at the factory. Long-travel suspension combined with low weight ensured high car traffic on dirt and country roads. The engine is a V-shaped two-cylinder, air-cooled, with an upper valve arrangement, a displacement of 1163 cm³ and a capacity of 22 liters. with. The clutch is conical, with a mechanical drive from the pedal. Gearbox - three-stage, without synchronizers. In the main gear there was no differential. Brakes - mechanical tape on all wheels (according to other information - only on the rear). The body is open, like a “phaeton” , with two doors - one for each row of seats, a frame-panel mixed wooden-metal construction.

Sometimes it is indicated that the Czechoslovak Tatras of models 11 and 12 served as the prototype for NAMI-1 - the latter really proved to be very successful during the Moscow-Tiflis-Moscow race in 1925, reaching the finish line the first of 78 cars, and not by virtue of its high-speed qualities, but due to reliability and cross-country ability, which attracted the wide attention of the Soviet automobile circles. In fact, this is only partially true, since the direct resemblance of these cars was only the very use of the tubular spinal frame as a structural element. Moreover, the design of many units varied, and very significantly. So, at Tatra, the front suspension was made on one transverse semi-elliptical spring, the engine was a boxer, not a V-shaped, and so on. Even the layout scheme used was different: at NAMI-1 the power unit was located completely inside the wheelbase, while at Tatra it had a forward drive over the axle of the front wheels (which improved the distribution of vehicle weight along the axles, but limited the dynamic movement of the front suspension, impairing patency). On the whole, being executed clearly in the spirit of the Czechoslovak engineering school, in particular, NAMI-1 nevertheless represented a completely independent construction.

1. Like the Czechoslovak Tatra, the car had a spinal frame in the form of a pipe with a diameter of 135 mm with an internal shaft without hinges.
2. The rear wheel suspension is independent (swinging axle shafts), with a transverse spring, the front - dependent. Independent suspension gave her an exceptionally smooth ride for those times.
3. The body is a four-seat chaise, and each row of seats had only one door: the front one on the left, the rear one on the right.
4. Relatively low body weight. The curb weight is 700 kg.
5. Ground clearance 225 mm.
6. The diameter of the wheels is 730 mm.
7. Engine capacity of 22 liters. with., air cooling.
8. Maximum speed - 90 km / h, fuel consumption: 8-10 liters per 100 km of track.
9. The lack of differential, independent rear wheel suspension, high ground clearance and large-diameter wheels gave NAMI-1 superiority in cross-country ability over many passenger cars that were in use at that time in the USSR.

In general, the car turned out to be very light - even taking into account the superiority in mass production, it is only a few hundred kilograms heavier than a motorcycle with a sidecar, unpretentious, due to its low weight and long-stroke suspension it had good traffic. However, its design was "crude", especially in terms of manufacturing technology, and the possibilities for bringing it to a level suitable for mass production at an acceptable time in the country at that time did not have in mind the lack of necessary experience.

In addition, it turned out that, with all the positive qualities characteristic of them — cheapness, simplicity, low weight and economy — for full-fledged operation in the Soviet national economy, compact cars were generally of little use: a higher-class car was needed here, having more versatility in use and the corresponding capacity, durability and safety margin (operators NAMI-1 has been described as "not a car and a motorcycle on 4 wheels", with this clearly stated with a negative nnotatsiey, although the creators of the machine to use just such a concept we saw the advantage of their offspring).

Ultimately, the choice was made in favor of buying overseas production documentation for a proven model of an average displacement car and the proven technology for its serial production. This model was the American Ford A , which became GAZ-A . The return to the small-displacement models was carried out much later, in the pre-war years, when the task was set to create, on the basis of the experience gained in the development of medium and large displacement models, a car for sale for personal use by the population. The first production model of this type in the USSR was KIM-10 .

Тем не менее, многие из работавших над НАМИ-1 стали впоследствии видными специалистам в области автомобилестроения и других отраслей промышленности. Так, Шарапов руководил сектором опытных конструкций в институте двигателей Академии наук СССР и работал заместителем главного конструктора завода КАЗ , Бриллинг руководил ОКБ Министерства машиностроения СССР и заведовал отделом транспортных двигателей Академии наук СССР, Липгарт стал главным конструктором на ГАЗе и создателем знаменитой «Победы» М-20 , Чарнко — выдающимся конструктором артиллерийского вооружения и ракетной техники. Таким образом, даже не дав пригодного для массового производства образца автомобиля, проект сыграл важную роль в подготовке квалифицированных специалистов для нарождающейся отрасли.

Известно два сохранившихся экземпляра НАМИ-1. Первый находится в коллекции Московского политехнического музея, второй — сохраняется на нижегородском заводе «Гидромаш» (наследнике «Спартака», оказавшемся в ходе эвакуации в Горьком — Нижнем Новгороде).

История нижегородского экземпляра хорошо известна. Он был выпущен в 1930 году и поставлен в Иваново, где проработал пять лет до 1935, а затем попал в город Троицк (Челябинская область), и пробыл там до середины 1970-х годов, с какого-то момента находясь в частных руках. У последнего владельца В. Суслова он был в 1976 году выкуплен заводом «Гидромаш», на котором прошёл полный цикл реставрации и сохраняется до настоящего времени.

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• Первый советский легковой автомобиль «НАМИ I» Журнал За рулём № 1 1929 год
• Достоинства и недостатки автомобиля «НАМИ I» Журнал За рулём № 14 1929 год
• Достоинства и недостатки автомобиля «НАМИ I» Журнал За рулём № 15 1929 год
• Достоинства и недостатки автомобиля «НАМИ I». Журнал За рулём № 16 1929 год
• Советская малолитражка в тупике. Журнал «За рулём», № 19 за 1933 год.