Moscow calling
Sam starts work on the only Volga 31012 known to exist
In the previous issue, I outlined my five-year search for a V8 Volga and gloated on my improbable success in finding one. My prize was stashed in the Moscow lock-up of my friend Vladimir Vozovik, who had masterminded its purchase. I’d not set eyes on it in the metal, so set out to correct this forthwith. To briefly recap: The GAZ 31012 and 31013 were the last of the Volga ‘dogonyalkas’ – or ‘catcher uppers’. These were KGB sleeper cars for surveillance and harassment, visually indistinguishable from the proletarian four-cylinder GAZ 3102 but substantially modified under the skin. The 31012 had an automatic gearbox and a 195bhp 5.5-litre V8 engine from a GAZ 13 Chaika limousine; the 31013 a later auto ‘box and a 220bhp version of the V8 from a GAZ 14. Production totalled 29 and 283 respectively. Vladimir recounted the full acquisition story as he collected Ed Hughes and I from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport: ‘I saw a bad advert for a V8 Volga on a forum for fans of American cars. I was certain it’d be a homemade fake – but it was only just outside Moscow, so I visited the guy. He’d bought it at a local bankruptcy auction in 2015, figuring that it was the closest he’d get to owning an American muscle car. It looked bad, but it was absolutely the real thing – and it was a presumed-extinct 31012! I said it might be useful for parts for my Volgas, then called later and made a low offer. I sent a friend with beavertail to get it the next morning.’
‘I’ve found some of its history,’ he continued. ‘It was issued to the central department of the Moscow KGB in 1989, but in 1991 it was assigned to a factory that produced something secret enough to be given KGB protection. The factory’s director liked it and used it as his personal car. The plant closed after the fall of the USSR and its assets were bought by a bank, including the car. This is how it escaped being destroyed when it left service, which was KGB policy. The son of one of the bank managers took it, drove it around for a while, then parked it in his garden. He drank and gambled through his father’s money, which is how it ended up in the bankruptcy auction.’
Sinister discoveries
An hour later, Ed, Vladimir and I were clambering over the 31012 like giddy schoolgirls. The level of paranoid attention to detail was fascinating. It has a manual gearstick from a standard 3102, but it clicks forward and backward to control the automatic ‘box. A dummy clutch pedal is simply a second brake pedal, linked to the regular one beside it. The V8’s twin exhausts meet secretly
at the rear to exit in an inconspicuous single pipe. A large fuel tank is placed over the axle, concealed behind a curtain. The deep boot floor – where the fuel tank resides in a standard 3102 – houses the spare wheel and a plinth for mysterious radio apparatus. Most sinister of all however is a handle between the rear seats that pops open the bootlid. If, like me, you read too many Le Carré books as a child, this really sets the imagination racing.
We returned the next morning and manhandled the car into the nearby workshop of Vladimir’s friend Victor. Our initial impression was largely positive. It was generally quite bad – but bad in a good way. Its dereliction stemmed from neglect and disuse, rather than adulteration and abuse. The bodywork was half-decent but the sills, wing bottoms, exhaust and underside were in a state of ruin – which lined up with the story of it spending two decades festering in long grass. On the plus side, there were no signs of welded repairs. Mechanically, too, it appeared encouragingly original and unmolested. It showed signs of a lack of maintenance and a long period of inactivity – which is vastly superior to botched maintenance and being driven into the ground.
Assessing the drivetrain and the possibility of getting it moving seemed a sensible next step. The engine oil was inky black and at least 20 per cent rancid petrol. The bucket-like four-barrel carburettor was an obvious place to begin investigations, as it’d clearly been on fire. Removing its top revealed the problem: the pedestal that supported one side of one of the two floats had broken off, allowing the float to droop listlessly and rendering the needle valve incontinent.
Repairing the casting was beyond the scope of our facilities but, fortuitously, Vladimir had a spare carburettor to hand for his GAZ 24-24 – an earlier Volga ‘dogonyalkas’ based on a GAZ 24. We gave it a clean and a once-over, set the float levels and declared it to be in fine order. It was a direct swap, aside from some minor fussingabout with linkages. We stripped and cleaned the fuel pump, finding its diaphragm and valves to be in serviceable condition. We refitted it with a stack of homemade gaskets to give a sensible clearance between the operating arm and its lobe on the camshaft.
We went on an expedition to the local equivalent of Halfords – a Santa’s grotto where parts for every mainstream Lada, GAZ and
UAZ model are exhibited in glass cabinets, from copper washers to whole engines. We bought a new fuel filter element, fuel hose and clips, antifreeze and seven litres of engine oil.
I installed and administered our purchases after draining the rancid oil and swilling the primordial soup from the centrifugal filter, then attended to the valve clearances – discovering the rocker arms to be quite unworn beneath their heavy crust of carbon. The cooling system was made more-or-less watertight with a creative tessellation of hoses and clips from Victor’s museum of secondhand parts. The petrol smelled combustible and the old filter was unsullied, so I left the tank and rigid fuel lines alone.
Ed, meanwhile, deftly decoded the ignition. The original electronic ignition system had been disconnected completely and the distributor replaced with a new-looking points unit from, we presumed, a GAZ truck with a related V8 engine. This had been lashed to a ballasted coil of classic Volga/moskvich origin. It seemed to function, so Ed tidied up the wiring, set the points gap and static advance, and cleaned and gapped the spark plugs. We fitted a battery and turned the engine on the starter with the king HT lead disconnected until the oil pressure light obligingly extinguished. With the lead connected, it shuddered to life in an explosion of dust, smoke and bits of flying rats’ nest. It ran quite well once the idle mixture had been set, with no obvious signs of mechanical distress or malady. With no exhausts to speak of, it sounded terrifying
Grunt-to-grip ratio
We gave the rest of the running-gear a onceover, but found nothing worth dismembering. The brakes were in a predictably grim state, but they worked after a fashion. The gushing power steering pump was clearly in need of more than a top-up and all other steering and suspension components required significant medical attention – but nothing looked ready to collapse. The gearbox and axle oil looked sensible.
We declared it ready for a test-drive. Reverse engaged with a ‘clonk-clonk’ of sloppy universal joints and the car burbled noisily out of the workshop. I located ‘drive’, lifted my foot off the brake and gently pressed the throttle. A short burn-out ensued as both rear tyres spun on the damp tarmac.
Ed climbed tentatively in and we went for a cruise around the garage complex. We never exceeded 20mph and the engine was doubtless a long way short of its 195bhp and 304lb ft potential, but the driving experience was, nonetheless, intimidating. The car’s brutish gruntto-grip ratio explained the engine’s heavy carbon build-up: giving it a healthy high-rpm thrashing on a public highway would be potentially suicidal. The test-drive came to an end after 500 metres, when we ran out of petrol.
Ed, Vladimir and I discussed our contingency plan over calming litres of Zhigulevskoye beer. We’d initially harboured the notion of lashing the car together and driving it to the UK. We agreed, however, that the job was too great and that it deserved better. We resolved instead to get it transported to the UK, where it can be treated to a thorough and systematic recommissioning in the luxury of my workshop. It’s going to be – and I do not use this word lightly – awesome.
‘A short burn-out ensued as both rear tyres spun on the tarmac’