CarBrandLogos archive · GAZ · 1994
The van that kept GAZ alive when the state stopped buying cars.
Discover the storyPhoto: Sah68 · CC BY-SA 3.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the GAZ GAZelle, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
When the Soviet Union dissolved, GAZ lost the institutional customers that had absorbed its saloons and faced a market that wanted something else entirely: cheap light commercial vehicles for the traders, couriers and private bus operators appearing in every post-Soviet city. The GAZelle, launched in 1994, was the answer, and it saved the company.
GAZ GAZelle in Prague, 2012 · High Contrast · CC BY 3.0 de
02
It is a plain front-engine, rear-drive light commercial platform offered as a dropside truck, pickup, panel van and minibus, with petrol, diesel and LPG engines from ZMZ and UMZ and, for a period, Chrysler. The minibus version became the standard marshrutka, the shared-route taxi that still carries a large share of urban traffic across Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia.
Ambulance in Tomsk · Ilya Plekhanov · CC BY-SA 3.0
03
Assembly spread beyond Nizhny Novgorod to Lithuania, Ukraine, Turkey and elsewhere, and the GAZelle NEXT modernised the design without changing its purpose. It replaced the RAF-2203 minibus and has been in continuous production since 1994, making it one of the few Russian vehicles of the period to become genuinely ubiquitous.
GAZel 2705 school bus · Arnar Ram 2 · CC BY-SA 3.0
At a glance
Produced
1994–presentEngine
Petrol engineBody
2-door dropside truckTechnical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the GAZelle's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →Contemporaries from the 1990s
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