How the Soviets tried to sell Moskvitches to Americans (PHOTOS)

June 17 2019

The Moskvitch car was a symbol of the Soviet middle class. But when it came to exporting it to the U.S., things didn't quite go to plan… This roller-coaster tale could be made into a Hollywood movie.

Joseph Stalin was a passionate lover of foreign cars. Once, after seeing Opel and Ford models at an exhibition in the Kremlin in 1940, he decided that the USSR must also have its own mass-produced automobile. His wish was taken as a command. And so, the Moskvitch was born. An assembly plant of the same name was founded with the help of car manufacturers from Detroit (a Soviet delegation had been sent to the U.S.). It eventually went bankrupt only after the collapse of the USSR. But, prior to that, Moskvitch brand cars had managed to become what they had been intended to be - a "people's car" that would also not be embarrassing to export to the West.

David Sholomovich/Sputnik

The first Moskvitch model appeared in 1947 and a few years later it was already successfully exported to Egypt - and even ‘capitalist’ France and Norway. Just getting access to the U.S. market would have been a great success, and, what’s more, the slogan ‘Catching up and overtaking America’ was something of a state development strategy at the time. In the fall of 1959, it almost became a reality. Stalin was already dead and Nikita Khrushchev was Soviet leader, and it was he who met with Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.

If one is to believe the memoirs of the car’s chief designer, Alexander Andronov, when the subject of cars came up during the meeting, Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for the sale of the Moskvitch-407 on the American market, and added that, “when he retires, he will be happy to have such a car on his ranch." That same year, Associated Press published a photograph showing a Soviet Moskvitch turning from 7th Avenue into 48th Street in Manhattan. The caption under the photograph said that, in the near future, 10,000 such cars would arrive in America.

Appearing before the Soviet Parliament, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev holds aloft photos which he identified as views of Military and Industrial targets taken by downed American pilot Francis Powers.

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At a time when not a single American car was actually being sold in the Soviet Union, it was a landmark deal for the USSR. And it really happened: An agreement with the importer was signed. But the promised 10,000 Moskvitch cars never reached America. A notorious incident occured: American reconnaissance pilot Gary Powers was shot down flying a U-2 spy plane over the territory of the USSR. The ensuing international scandal was the first, but not the only obstacle.

Archive photo

Even before the plane incident, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce said he would take measures against the Moskvitch, to prevent it from coming onto the U.S. market. The reason for this was anti-dumping legislation. The USSR was going to sell the car for a ridiculous price - $1,500. In addition, an American company had hired a law firm to prove that the Russian automobile had a component with a patent belonging to the Americans.

Archive photo

In the end, it all turned out very bad for the Moskvitch. Nevertheless, three vehicles were somehow imported by private individuals to the U.S. in the late 1950s. One of them was later destroyed by fire, while traces of the second one were lost somewhere in the environs of Detroit, but the story of the third Moskvitch sounds like a blockbuster. The Soviet magazine Za Rulem published it in July, 1988.

Russian Moskvitch—an unusual site on the streets of Los Angeles. 1958

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At the beginning of 1958, it was bought in Europe by an American, who loaded it on a ship in Amsterdam and brought it all the way to the port of Los Angeles. However, the Moskvitch was not allowed in by customs, because it had failed to meet American regulations and, moreover, had its doors damaged during unloading. So the owner decided to send it to Mexico and sell it there. But, as soon as the car arrived in Mexico, it was stolen and taken back to… Los Angeles.