How is a car made? Professor Chudakov explained everything

We continue the material cycle dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the magazine “Za Rulem”.

If a print publication has no competitors, it’s relatively easy to stay afloat. But when new newspapers and magazines pop up out of nowhere almost daily and readers don’t care who they prefer, the situation escalates dramatically.

It was precisely in such an environment that the magazine Za Rulem appeared in 1928. At the same time, “Crocodile”, “Soviet photo”, “Literary newspaper”, “Peasant woman”, “Around the world”, “Spark”, “Sail”, “Worker”, “Roman-newspaper” and many others were published.

The topic of such publications was understandable and in demand. And what would “Behind the Wheel” offer if there really were no cars in the country?

First car

The task of the creators of the new magazine was ambitious: to captivate the reader with something that does not yet exist. Therefore, from the very first issue, eminent authors began to be attracted to writing articles, the authority of which was not questioned.

The seminal article “The future of the USSR automobile industry” was written not by a dreamer-theorist, but by a real professor – Evgeny Alekseevich Chudakov.

And already from the next issues, the professor begins to publish material on the car’s device. And not short notes, but detailed articles – as for a solid textbook.

If you want to know how a car works, get the file “Behind the wheel” and read Professor Chudakov! And it was strong: there was simply no alternative to such materials.

From school to passenger car series

Evgeny Chudakov’s biography is remarkable. He came from the village and graduated with honors from the Imperial Moscow Technical School at the age of 26.

Almost immediately, the young engineer was sent to the UK – for the purchase and acceptance of cars and motorcycles. But in 1918, Chudakov returned to Russia – in the midst of world-famous upheavals. He firmly believed that his place was not in London, but in his homeland.

In Moscow, he got a job in the department of his native school, which by that time had already been transformed into the Moscow Higher Technical School. Gradually, the situation developed in such a way that it was Chudakov who began to deal with almost all car and near-car affairs.

In the Scientific Automobile Laboratory (NAL), later transformed into NAMI, actually one design bureau for all domestic car factories appeared.

Chudakov and his colleagues organized motorcycle meetings with the participation of foreign manufacturers, developed the first serial passenger car NAMI-1 and negotiated with the Americans on the production of domestic trucks.

Labor awards

Since the beginning of the war, Chudakov was engaged in adapting imported equipment for low-octane fuel, developing technology for clearing snow from military airfields, modernizing aircraft engines, etc.

In 1943 academician Chudakov refused … the Stalin Prize awarded to him! He personally sent a message to Stalin requesting the 100,000 rubles allocated to him for the construction of a tank column “For advanced science.” Stalin thanked him with the words “Accept my greetings and gratitude to the Red Army, Yevgeny Alekseevich, for taking care of the armored troops of the Red Army.”

Evgeny Chudakov was a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the first director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His works are still studied by students. Many of these works were published on the pages of the magazine “Behind the wheel”.