The invention of the first collector armored car of the USSR

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Soviet times, people trusted each other more than they do now, but sometimes this did not save them from the same robberies. The collectors suffered no less from this - for a long time they carried cash to the bank on ordinary Volga or Zhiguli, which did not make such trips safe. Then it was decided to create a specialized vehicle for this purpose. And it was created - only a century turned out to be very short-lived, if only because the floor of the collector's armored car turned out to be … wooden.

It is difficult to say when they first started talking about the need to create a Soviet cash-in-transit armored car, but they took this matter seriously only in the mid-1980s. Then the State Bank of the USSR submitted the corresponding order to the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Steel. According to the idea, as a result of the development, a specialized collector vehicle with bulletproof armor was to be obtained.

But the first attempt failed: for some unknown reason, the specialists of the research institute simply decided to equip the good old "loaf" with armor. However, tests showed the inexpediency of this idea: at the shooting range, the prototype was literally turned into a sieve. It was decided to abandon such a design.

After the first failure, it was decided to place an order for a batch of finished cars. But even here it was not without the famous ingenuity: when it became clear that it was necessary to use currency to purchase such models, they came up with an original way out - the future Soviet armored cars decided not to buy, but to develop, using foreign specialists, but based on the domestic model. Moreover, the choice of the latter is also surprising - instead of a quite suitable "loaf" they took "rafik" for some reason.

Several foreign companies applied for a tender for the creation of the first Soviet cash-in-transit armored car: Fontauto (Italy), Labbe and Manufrua (France), Bedwas (Great Britain), Tiele and Ackermann-Freuhauf (Germany). In fact, they were given two main conditions - ballistic protection of the second class (protection against pistol rounds), and the curb weight of the vehicle no more than 2, 7 tons, because more RAF-2203 could not stand it, largely because of its … plywood floor.

As a result, none of the companies was able to meet the set curb weight restrictions: for example, the Italian Fontauto was 37 kilograms more, but one of the two prototypes of the German Tiele turned out to be the record holder for exceeding the limit - this prototype weighed as much as 3.5 tons. In the end, a car from the French company Labbe was chosen, in which the maximum curb weight was exceeded by 50 kilograms.

As a result, the winning company received an order for 62 cash-in-transit armored cars. These unusual minibuses appeared on Soviet streets in the late 1980s. The employees of the State Bank of the USSR liked the car, because it was much more comfortable than domestic cars: it was equipped with a power steering, an autonomous interior heater and even air conditioning.

However, the satisfaction from the operation, like the history of this unusual car, was short-lived. And all because of that very overweight, because to those 50 kilograms the weight of the crew and, in fact, the load itself were added from above. After a short time of using the RAF Labbe, the suspension and steering turned into dust, the brakes were not able to stop the car quickly enough, the engine overloaded corny overheated, and even the door hinges sagged under the weight of the armored panels.

Therefore, after a few years, the first collector's armored car of the USSR was pushed to the sidelines of life, and the cars were literally thrown out of the dustbin of history - even today they can be found completely abandoned and slowly turning into a heap of scrap metal.