WI: Soviet Volkswagen Beetle

I was watching this video by the ColdFusion YouTube channel (which I strongly recommend you check out) and found out that in 1932, Joseph Stalin, hoping to advance industrial development with the help of experts from capitalist countries, approached Ferdinand Porsche, future Volkswagen founder and designer of the VW Beetle, to become general director of the Soviet automobile industry, but Porsche turned it down due to the language barrier. In OTL, Soviet cars were not known for being particularly good, so what if Porsche decided to learn Russian and accepted?
 
Cannot really say, is it known what other engineers and experts Stalin approached?

Depending on the state of Nazi-Soviet relations prior to WW2 is there a way for the Volkswagen to be considered a joint project, with one factory in Wolfsburg and another somewhere in the Soviet Union?

It is interesting to note that the Soviets in OTL sought to move their Occupation Zone of Germany further west in order to gain Wolfsburg (having already appropriated / looted other factories within its occupation zone) though were rebuffed by the British, with the Soviets later approaching Volkswagen and a few other carmakers prior to choosing Fiat and establishing Lada.
 
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A Stalin Mobile? Hammer and Sickle logo and hood ornament? Comes in any color you want as long as that color is red?
 
I was watching this video by the ColdFusion YouTube channel (which I strongly recommend you check out) and found out that in 1932, Joseph Stalin, hoping to advance industrial development with the help of experts from capitalist countries, approached Ferdinand Porsche, future Volkswagen founder and designer of the VW Beetle, to become general director of the Soviet automobile industry, but Porsche turned it down due to the language barrier. In OTL, Soviet cars were not known for being particularly good, so what if Porsche decided to learn Russian and accepted?

However Henry Ford was already involved:

Signed in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 31, 1929, the contract stipulated that Ford would oversee construction of a production plant at Nizhni Novgorod, located on the banks of the Volga River, to manufacture Model A cars. An assembly plant would also start operating immediately within Moscow city limits. In return, the USSR agreed to buy 72,000 unassembled Ford cars and trucks and all spare parts to be required over the following nine years, a total of some $30 million worth of Ford products. Valery U. Meshlauk, vice chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, signed the Dearborn agreement on behalf of the Soviets. To comply with its side of the deal, Ford sent engineers and executives to the Soviet Union.

And the Soviet car you linked to is a rebadged Fiat.

This is a Soviet car:

GAZ-24


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-24
 
A Stalin Mobile? Hammer and Sickle logo and hood ornament? Comes in any color you want as long as that color is red?

Or in essence a earlier slightly large ZAZ Zaporozhets.

Would be funny having both the Soviet Beetle and the original Volkswagen Beetle be competing symbols for an ATL fractured Counter Culture / Hippy movement.
 
I was watching this video by the ColdFusion YouTube channel (which I strongly recommend you check out) and found out that in 1932, Joseph Stalin, hoping to advance industrial development with the help of experts from capitalist countries, approached Ferdinand Porsche, future Volkswagen founder and designer of the VW Beetle, to become general director of the Soviet automobile industry, but Porsche turned it down due to the language barrier. In OTL, Soviet cars were not known for being particularly good, so what if Porsche decided to learn Russian and accepted?

The Soviets did deal with Henry Ford, and that's why the GAZ truck you can see the Ford Model AA truck staring back, same for Cars, with the GAZ M1
640px-Sevastopol_Victory_Day_Parade_GAZ-M1_IMG_1572_1725.jpg

Totally not a '34 Ford.

Now Porsche in the USSR would be helpful from one sense - He would be unlikely to be tapped by Hitler to make his version of the Tiger later on.

Dr Porsche did crib most of his ideas for his 'People's Car' from the Tatra 97
c8bcb254d56bde3c0dffdd7e2cfe434c.jpg

tumblr_inline_nacfvlzgX91sl5p31.jpg


Unlike VW, the Soviets were not adverse to retooling to better products.

So the 'Zhuk' would be changed after a decade or so
 
Unlike VW, the Soviets were not adverse to retooling to better products.

So the 'Zhuk' would be changed after a decade or so

On the other hand, there were many Soviet / Eastern Bloc prototypes that never saw production in OTL due to the lack of money and it is likely the Soviet Beetle would be merged with other Soviet / Eastern Bloc cars like the Zaporozhets. For example the Wartburg 610M prototype was essentially a front-engined FWD Skoda 120.
 
That is actually the DKW-derived East German IFA F9, whose underpinnings found their way into the Wartburg 311.

It is interesting idea though having the Russian Beetle evolve into the rear-engined equivalent of Wartburg.
 
Interestingly, it seems the Spanish were the ones to have built a knock-off of the Volkswagen Beetle called the Orix 610. - https://jalopnik.com/this-is-not-a-volkswagen-beetle-1821524080

Now imagine if the maker of the Orix was more successful compared to OTL via a combination of banker investment and building a new factory, along with from the outset unwillingly managing to make the ATL Orix 610 resemble one or more of Volkswagen's many many Beetle replacing prototypes such as the EA97/1 below.

18p3b8dhc2mmijpg.jpg
 
Still recall tales of the Great 1937 Circum-Moscow road race. Several Soviet automobiles entered, along with one 1933 Ford roadster. As the race date approached, Russian cars withdrew one by one till only a single Moskovich (Sp ?) remained.

The day after the race, Pravda Headlines: "Soviet Automobile Finishes Second In Great International Race! American Ford Next To Last"

Dynasoar
 
If Dr Porsche had defected to the Soviets in the early thirties, might we have seen red rear engine Grand Prix race cars with hammer & sickle emblems instead of four ring Auto Union emblems?

Dynasoar
 
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