By the thirties of the last century, cars had learned to develop very high speeds, which resulted in the need to develop aerodynamics. In our country, remarkable results of this kind were obtained in 1934. The experimental GAZ-A-Aero of the designer Alexei Osipovich Nikitin became the first domestic streamlined car.
Theory for practice
Work on a new topic started in 1934 and was carried out by the Automobile Department of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army (VAMM RKKA) on the initiative of A. O. Nikitin. Other organizations that had the necessary scientific and technical base were involved in the research.
By that time, cars had reached speeds of up to 100-110 km / h, which was facilitated by the use of new chassis designs, more powerful engines, etc. Foreign experience has shown that an additional increase in performance can be obtained by improving the car body and reducing air resistance.
Research at WAMM began with a theoretical study of the existing issues and the search for optimal solutions. We managed to find the main ideas to improve the performance. At the same time, they could be combined in different ways and get different results.
A. Nikitin and his colleagues worked out four versions of the streamlined body and assembled the corresponding scale models for blowing in the wind tunnel of the Moscow Aviation Institute. Together with them, it was planned to test a model of the GAZ-A car with the original body of the "phaeton" type. The four test models had significant similarities, but differed in the shapes of different aggregates, and, accordingly, in characteristics.
Tests have shown a sharp reduction in the coefficient of air resistance with direct blowing of the model. For different models, it was 31-66 percent. from the characteristics of the original car. Crosswind studies have also been carried out, showing clear advantages of the new bodies.
Detailed results of calculations and tests were published in the magazine "Motor", No. 2, 1935. The author of the article "Streamlined car on the chassis of the GAZ-A" was A. Nikitin himself.
Prototype
In 1934, the VAMM RKKA, together with the experimental workshop of the Gorky Automobile Plant, built and tested a prototype of a car with a streamlined body. The basis for it was the modified GAZ-A chassis - for this reason, the experimental machine was later named "Streamlined GAZ-A" or GAZ-A-Aero. To control the results, a second GAZ-A car in the basic configuration was used.
The prototype car retained the frame and chassis of the base GAZ-A. The power plant at different stages of testing included a standard engine or its boosted version. The motor was upgraded by installing an aluminum head and increasing compression, which led to an increase in power to 48.4 hp. The mechanical transmission has not changed. The governing bodies remained the same.
The new streamlined body had a mixed design. Curved steel sheets of various shapes were installed on a wooden frame. To improve aerodynamics, predominantly curved parts of different curvature were used. The engine was covered with a curved front fairing with louvers and sides of a similar design. Behind the hood was a V-shaped windshield. The roof of the body smoothly turned into a sloping tail with a pointed rear end.
The wheels were covered with teardrop-shaped fairings. The front fairings had side cutouts for the steerable wheels, the rear were solid. Semi-recessed fairings for headlights were provided on the front fenders.
Due to the large fenders, the rear doors had to be abandoned. The front doors received small handles. In addition, they completely covered the footpegs. All this was due to the need to reduce air resistance.
The GAZ-A-Aero car, due to its special body, had a length of 4970 mm. Despite the new fenders, the width remained at the level of the base car - 1710 mm. Height - 1700 mm. The curb weight with refueling and spare parts is 1270 kg, i.e. almost 200 kg more than that of the GAZ-A. It was assumed that further improvement of the design would make it possible to equalize the weight of the two bodies. During the tests, the vehicles were transported by measuring equipment and a team of five testers. At the same time, the mass of GAZ-A reached 1625 kg, and GAZ-A-Aero - up to 1700 kg.
Car on the track
The tests of GAZ-A-Aero were carried out on the tracks of the automobile plant and on the roads of the city of Gorky. The test and test cars covered thousands of kilometers in several weeks in different conditions and helped to collect a lot of data for further analysis. In general, it became clear that the streamlined body has serious advantages over the standard phaeton.
The maximum speed of GAZ-A-Aero with a standard engine reached 100 km / h, with a modified one - 106 km / h. The production car accelerated to 82, 5 and 93 km / h, respectively. The increase in speed was 15-21 percent.
The streamlined car had better dynamics. Acceleration from standstill to 70 km / h took 27.5 seconds versus 35.5 seconds for GAZ-A. A production car with a lot of resistance slowed down faster. So, the decay of speed from 70 to 40 km / h occurred at a distance of 330 m. GAZ-A-Aero under the same conditions covered 440 m.
In urban conditions, the streamlined car showed very modest savings. At an average speed of 30 km / h, this car wasted 5 liters of gasoline for 46.7 kilometers, and the fuel savings were only 3%. In other conditions, the benefits were more pronounced. So, on the highway with continuous movement at a speed of 50 km / h, the savings reached 12% relative to the consumption of GAZ-A. The maximum fuel economy of 26.2% was obtained at 80 km / h. Comparison at higher speeds turned out to be impossible due to the limited characteristics of the GAZ-A.
The measurements of the power spent on overcoming the resistance to movement were carried out. At 50 km / h, GAZ-A spent 12.2 hp on it, GAZ-A-Aero - 8 hp. (savings 34%) At a speed of 90 km / h these parameters reached 46 and 29 hp, which corresponded to savings of more than 36%. At the same time, the experimental car had a reserve of power for further acceleration, and at a speed of 100 km / h, the cost of resistance reached 37 hp.
The streamlined car showed the best performance in crosswinds of different strengths at different angles. In addition, the high speed ride was less noisy. On the serial phaeton, vortices were observed to break off the windshield and rear of the body, which was the cause of additional noise. There were no such problems on the new body.
Professionals and the public were able to find out the detailed results of running tests from the article by A. Nikitin "Road tests of a streamlined car on a GAZ-A chassis". It was published in the March 1935 issue of Motor magazine.
Backlog for the future
Based on the test results of two VAMM RKKA and GAZ vehicles, they made several main conclusions. The main one concerned the general benefits of streamlined bodies. Even when installed on a fairly old chassis, such a product gave a noticeable increase in running and economic characteristics. At the same time, the body of the GAZ-A-Aero was far from optimal in terms of aerodynamics - the limitations imposed by the chassis design affected.
It was proposed to continue the study of automotive aerodynamics and take it into account when creating new models. The development of automotive technology and roads in the future should have led to a new increase in travel speeds, because of which streamlining became a decisive factor. New solutions could be implemented on small-scale sports cars, and then transferred to public equipment, as was often done abroad.
In 1934, after the completion of the tests, the experimental GAZ-A-Aero was transferred to the Automobile Council of the Avtodor Society for new research. There is no information about his further fate.
After the success of the experimental project GAZ-A-Aero, the specialists of the automotive department of the WAMM RKKA continued theoretical research in a number of areas, including. on the topic of aerodynamics. Soon, new theoretical results appeared, recommended for use in future projects of passenger cars.
However, active work in this direction lasted only a few years. In the late thirties, scientists had to closely tackle the topic of military vehicles, and experiments with streamlining faded into the background. Real successes in this direction were obtained only after the war. During this period, the production of modern cars with a streamlined body started, and the developments of A. O. Nikitin and his colleagues.
