GAZ-23 Volga

The GAZ-21 was quite weird. Although the design was very obviously influenced by American cars, it had a high ground clearance, presumably to cope with Russian roads, so it didn’t really look like it knew what it wanted to be. And yet, despite being large, heavy and underpowered, it was used for rallying, and even took a class win at the Thousand Lakes Rally in Finland.

By 1959, the car was the most luxurious car officially sold to the public, so the KGB needed a faster version to keep up. So they inserted the 160 horsepower 5.5 litre V8 from a GAZ Chaika and called it the GAZ-23.