The fate of the Moskvich brand falls into the hands of the Moscow Government for the second time

The news that Renault Russia plant is being taken over by the Moscow Government did not surprise anyone in the automotive world, because for the past two weeks such a possible option has been actively discussed at various levels. But the fact that now in the capital they want to revive the historical brand "Moskvich", some experts prompted a desire to make an excursion into history. Indeed, the time has come to "gather the stones." Indeed, 26 years ago, the Moscow Government already accepted a certain production facility in this territory into trust management.

Here the information of the book "The Russian Car Market: History in Figures and Facts": "The Moskvich enterprise (ZMA, MZMA, AZLK) was founded in 1930, it began with the assembly of Ford cars and trucks. Later it became a branch of GAZ and produced GAZ-A and GAZ-AA. In 1940, it opened the production of his own CIM model. During the war years, he worked for the needs of the front. In 1945, on the territory of the enterprise, they began to build a plant for the production of passenger cars "Moskvich", which produced cars until 2001. In 2006, it was officially declared bankrupt. At the time of bankruptcy, the enterprise was 60% owned by the state, and the production of "Muscovites" in the 90s actually became subsidized.

When in 1996 the conveyor stopped and the question arose about the bankruptcy of the plant, the Moscow Government took the enterprise into trust management. By that time, component failures and a drop in build quality had taken their toll. Work on the creation of promising models has already been stopped; they have given way to a new concept, which involved the small-scale production of previously developed expensive business class cars on the Moskvich-2141 and Moskvich-2142 platforms (Prince Vladimir, Yuri Dolgoruky, "Ivan Kalita", "Svyatogor"). The models have been improved in compare with the base ones, the most problematic units and assemblies have been replaced by 50 percent with imported counterparts. But after the default of 1998 and the depreciation of the ruble, their production became unprofitable, and in 2001 the plant stopped completely. In total, for the years of assembly, the enterprise produced more than 5 million cars of the Moskvich brand. According to the analytical agency "AUTOSTAT", as of January 1st, 2022, almost 200 thousand cars of the Moskvich brand were registered in Russia. Most of them were in Moscow (15.6 thousand units) and the Altai Territory (12.9 thousand units). But, we note that at least 1 copy of this brand is available in all other regions of the country, even in Chukotka (there are 4 such cars).

The new "Muscovites", of course, are unlikely to resemble the appearance of cars twenty years ago. At the moment, it is known that KAMAZ will become the main technological partner of the project. It is likely that it will shape the appearance of the revived brand. At the first stage, it is planned to produce classic cars with an internal combustion engine, but in the future, they want to produce electric cars in the capital.