The SMZ was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive motorized car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the c ...

microcar Microcar is a term often used for the smallest size of cars, with three or four wheels and often an engine smaller than . Specific types of microcars include bubble cars, cycle cars, invacar, quadricycles and voiturettes. Microcars are ofte ...

, manufactured in

Serpukhov Serpukhov ( rus, Серпухов, p=ˈsʲerpʊxəf) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Oka River, Oka and the Nara (Oka), Nara Rivers, 99 kilometers (62 miles) south fro ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, by ''Serpukhov Motor Works'' (, ''Serpukhovskiy Motozavod''), later known as the now-defunct

SeAZ SeAZ () was a large engineering plant in Serpukhov, Moscow Oblast, Russia. From 1939 to 1995, the company was called SMZ (Serpukhov Motorcycle Plant) and produced various cyclecars for use by disabled drivers, usually powered by IZh motorcycle e ...

. The most common models were the S-3A and S-3D. They were specially designed for disabled drivers and were distributed in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

for free or at a large discount through the Soviet Union's social welfare system, and were not officially sold to non-disabled people. The S-3A-M was produced between 1958 and 1970. It was powered by a 346 cc single-cylinder two-stroke engine, giving and a top speed of . The S-3D, produced between 1970 and 1997, was a twin-seat, four-wheeled cyclecar, in length, but rather heavy (≈500 kg) due to its all-steel body. It was powered by an IZH-P3 air-cooled two-stroke engine. In the

, the model was commonly known as a "motor-wheelchair" (, ''invalidka'') because they were only leased via the social care system to

disabled Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...

people for five years without permission to sell (in a similar way to the British Invacars, made by AC, Thundersley and Tippen). After five years of use, a lessee had to return his "motor-wheelchair" to the social care organisations and was given a new one. Like the Invacars, not all ''invalidkas'' were scrapped, because some of their disabled lessees managed to register them as their private property. However, nowadays hen?they are rare, and earlier models are exceptionally rare and have become collectors' items. Since the 1980s, the use of SMZ cars has been in decline because disabled drivers prefer to use conventional cars with modified controls:

Zaporozhets ZAZ Zaporozhets ( ) was a series of rear-wheel-drive superminis (city cars in their first generation) designed and built from 1958 at the ZAZ factory in Soviet Ukraine. Different models of the Zaporozhets, all of which had an air-cooled engi ...

models, for instance, or the later

VAZ-1111 The Lada Оkа (VAZ-1111, SeAZ-1111, КаmАZ-1111, Astro 11301) () is a city car designed in the Soviet Union in the later part of the seventies by AvtoVAZ. It entered production in 1988 powered by a SOHC two-cylinder engine. While developed at ...

"Oka", which were sold to them at substantial discounts. The last 300 S-3Ds left the SeAZ factory as late as autumn 1997. S-3D production was discontinued without a direct replacement. The VAZ-1111 "Oka", which filled this role later, was a much larger, four-seater car.

S-3A specifications

* Weight – * Length – * Max velocity – * cylinder – 346 cc, in diameter * max power –

S-3D specifications

* Weight – * Dimensions – 2595 mm 102in(length) x 1380 mm 54in(width) x 1350 mm 53in(height) * Track width – * Wheelbase – * Min turning radius – 3,8 – 4,2 m * Max velocity – * Fuel consumption – * Engine – IZH-P3-01, located in the rear ** cylinder – 346 cc, in diameter ** piston stroke – ** max power – ** compression index – 7,5–8 * four-stage

gearbox A transmission (also called a gearbox) is a mechanical device invented by Louis Renault (who founded Renault) which uses a gear set—two or more gears working together—to change the speed, direction of rotation, or torque multiplication/r ...

Welfare cars

File:С-1А.jpg, SMZ S-1L File:SeAZ car in Paernu.jpg, SMZ S-3A File:Flickr - plushev - IMGP2462.jpg, SMZ S3D File:Automobil Oka (2004).jpg, SeAZ Oka

References

External links

SZA images
on

LiveJournal LiveJournal (), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as a way of keeping his high school ...

SZD
{{in lang, ru City cars Soviet automobiles Microcars Subcompact cars Convertibles Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 1958