The ZIS-110 is 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 ...

limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment which can be operated mechanically by hand or by a button electronically. A luxu ...

produced by

ZIL OJSC AMO ZiL, known fully as the Public Joint-Stock Company – Likhachov Plant () and more commonly called ZiL (, was a major Russian automobile, truck, military vehicle, and heavy equipment manufacturer that was based in Moscow. The last ZiL ...

from 1946 to 1958. The 110 was developed from the

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

of a 1942

Packard Super Eight The Packard Super Eight was the larger of the two Straight-eight engine, eight-cylinder Luxury vehicle, luxury automobiles produced by the Packard, Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan. It shared frames and some body types with the top m ...

during 1944. The first five prototypes were completed by August 1945. It was powered by a 6-litre, straight 8-cylinder engine, producing and giving a top speed of over . It was made in both sedan and convertible versions. The ZIS was rumored to use machinery from the Packard 180 assembly line which was sent to the USSR after American production ended. However, according to ''The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company'', Ward, James A. The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company, 1995, Page 46 there is no evidence whatsoever in the Packard archives of such a transfer. Moreover, as one of the main results of the collection of information and material of Bert Hein, there can be many current opinions within the car literature disproved. The database includes, in addition to some pictures of commissars with Packards, a registry of existing cars and information about all ZIS versions, but particularly a point to point comparison between the products of Packard and ZIS. Therefore more likely that the top commissars, including

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, owned several Packards and wanted their first effort at a luxury car to be based on what is arguably one of the top cars of the 1940s. These cars were often given away as gifts to foreign communist leaders such as Chinese leader

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

and North Korean premier

Kim Il-sung Kim Il Sung (born Kim Song Ju; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he led as its first supreme leader from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Afterwards, he was ...

. After Stalin, the ZIL-110B cabriolet was used as a parade car for

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

and this model was also given to

Enver Hoxha Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of People's Socialist Republic of Albania, Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the Secretary (titl ...

, the lifelong president of

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...

, the first president of North Vietnam, also received one (most likely from the Soviet Union), which can be seen on display on the grounds of his former residence in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Production ended in 1958, with total of 2,089 cars made.

Variants

*ZIS-110A: Ambulance version. Produced 1948–1958. *ZIS-110B: Phaeton version. Produced 1947–1958. *ZIS-110I: Prototype version with GAZ-13 Chaika powertrain. *ZIS-110P: All-wheel-drive version. *ZIS-110SH: Prototype all-wheel-drive version. Four built (two based on Dodge WC51 and two based on domestic units). Produced in 1949. *ZIS-110SH: Staff car version. *ZIS-110V: Convertible version. *

ZIS-115 The ZIS-115 is a Soviet-built, armored version of the ZIS-110 limousine, designed and built especially for Joseph Stalin. 32 of the cars were manufactured between 1948 and 1949. The heavily armored car's design was based on the American 1942 Packa ...

: Armored version. Also known as ZIS-110C.

Notable owners

Famous owners of the ZIS-110 have included the following people, but most of them were often given away as gifts to foreign communist leaders.

Politicians

Klement Gottwald Klement Gottwald (; 23 November 1896 – 14 March 1953) was a Czech communist politician, who was the leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1929 until his death in 1953 – titled as general secretary until 1945 and as chairman f ...

References

External links

Autogallery.ru - ZiS-110 picture gallery with technical specifications and history

ZIS 110 Exterior and Interior in Full 3D HD
(Stereoscopic 3D video of ZIS 110, YouTube) {{Authority control ZiL vehicles Luxury vehicles Cars introduced in 1946 Soviet automobiles Flagship vehicles 1958 disestablishments in the Soviet Union