Before the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet auto industry produced only a handful of buses. In 1938, the factory in Stalin’s city began manufacturing the ZIS-16, a model many consider one of the era’s most striking Soviet automobiles. Yet beneath its graceful lines lay a mix of aging parts and older engineering that masked a different reality.
The ZIS-16, a city bus 8523 mm long, replaced the clearly outdated ZIS-8. In comparison to its predecessor, the ZIS-16 grew substantially: 4970 mm overall versus 4420 mm. The track width measured 1545 mm at the front and 1710 mm at the rear, slightly wider than the ZIS-8 and its truck-based prototype, the ZIS-5, which stood at 1530 mm and 1675 mm, respectively. The bus’s empty weight increased from 4200 kg to 5100 kg.
The ZIS-16 frame derived from the ZIS-5 truck but was noticeably reinforced. The ZIS-5 frame itself traces back to an American Autocar CA truck from the late 1920s, for which the USSR had obtained a license. A closer look at how the American Autocar concept influenced the Soviet ZIS-5 helps explain the roots of the ZIS-16.
The ZIS-16’s predecessor, the ZIS-8, featured a front end that echoed the ZIS-5 and, in essence, borrowed from an American late-1920s design. It clearly appeared more archaic by today’s standards.
Braking on the ZIS-16 followed the lineage of its ancestors, the ZIS-5 truck and the ZIS-8 bus. The system used drum brakes with mechanical actuation.
The aesthetic of the ZIS-16 recalled the American International style of 1937. Cars from this era, particularly those made by that company in the late 1930s, left a lasting influence on Moscow models. The postwar era would later feature the mass car ZIS-150, a symbol of structural evolution in the line.
Structurally, the ZIS-16 used a body design typical of its era and of many European peers: a wooden frame encased in steel sheets. In the United States, General Motors began producing buses with all-metal bodies in 1940. The Soviet counterpart, the ZIS-154, appeared immediately after the war with an all-metal body.
In another face
AKZ-3 refers to a repaired afterwar ZIS-16 that received a front end from the ZIS-150. The ZIS-16, clearly, was a compromise design assembled from spare parts and available resources of the time.
Only 3250 buses were produced in total, yet some remained on service for many years. The same plant in Aremkuz serviced cars after the war, upgrading them with the plumage of Dodge trucks and eventually the ZIS-150. About fifty vehicles under the AKZ-3 designation were built to operate in Moscow.
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Photo: from the archive Behind the wheel