Vintage Thing No. 31.1 - the UAZ-452

The UAZ-452 became the UAZ-22069

Mentioning the UAZ-452 on this blog has prompted some responses but nothing concrete enough to explain how they arrived on Dartmoor. Peter Tuthill, of Motormind fame, has a brochure for one in English. He's promised to get me a facsimile copy and seems to recall that someone in Birmingham was importing them. Meanwhile, my mate Matt, who is a Tavistock boy born and bred and is an off road enthusiast, also remembers these little Russian 4x4's trundling over the moorland. He seems to have a vague recollection of having a ride in one but as this is something like 30 years ago it remains just a vague recollection.

Personally I prefer the look of the earlier UAZ-450

While looking for something else, Matt succeeded where I have not by digging up with his folding sand shovel other references to the UAZ-452 on the Internet. On Horizons Unlimited , “The Website Motorcyclists Trust”, someone was asking the question, are these little 4x4 is any good? The response was along the lines of not really. They seem to break down a lot but are easy to fix. More modern versions are known picturesquely as the UAZ-3962 but they can't compare with Japanese pickups like Toyotas or Mazdas. The only advantage the UAZ-3962 (pronounced Woz-3962, apparently) has over more sophisticated competitors is a starting handle, which can prove very useful when they do break down or need servicing. Or getting them to start, when it's really cold.

They have drum brakes and leaf springs on a live axles all-round and will run on 76 octane gasoline. Advice on Horizons Unlimited suggests that a UAZ (or Woz) Jeep or minivan with a native driver is probably the most practical form of transport in Mongolia. Japanese vehicles are typically more expensive but will've had a hard life. The UAZ-3962 would also have had a hard life but will be easier and cheaper to fix,too. The UAZ-452, if any still exists, would have had an even harder life by now.

The 1 millionth UAZ produced (including jeeps, trucks and vans) was this UAZ-452 van in 1974.

The vans were first introduced in 1961 when they were known as the UAZ-451D and were based on the UAZ-469, a rather militaristic field car or jeep. Another variant is the UAZ-3160, a five seater crew cab truck. UAZ has been under the ownership of the Severstal financial group since 2004 and following a push to improve quality - something that had suffered during the preceding years - the company has now gone on to better and greater things with a range of more modern four-wheel-drive vehicles including the UAZ Patriot (sound curiously American don't it?), which is designed to meet foreign SUV imports head on.

The Russian nickname for the UAZ-452 is "Буханка", which means "loaf" (of bread) and there is a saying that "A UAZ will break down where no other car can go". That's no worse than Ford standing for Failed Or Repaired Daily, the point being that if they do go wrong they can be fixed.

But most intriguingly - for me at any rate - one contributor to the discussion on Horizons Unlimited said that he'd recently visited someone who had two examples of UAZ-452s in his yard and that they were for sale. This was somewhere in the UK. The owner of these two vehicles confirmed that any reliability problems were probably due to ignition or carburettor faults that any competent mechanic could fix.

On that bombshell, I leave you -- for the moment at least -- with a seasonal picture of the Arctic UAZ-3962 in its natural habitat, picking up its knobbly-tyred-heels in the snow.

Bear in mind that this little van probably had to have a fire lit under its sump to make the oil thin enough to start it. And that it was probably started by an enthusiastic Mongolian swinging on the starting handle because it's likely the battery wasn't up to the job of turning the engine over at such very sub-zero temperatures. I think in that context the UAZ-452 or 3962 has an excuse to be a bit temperamental. I know I would in those circumstances.