ZiL was founded on 2 August 1916 as the Moscow Automotive Society (AMO) () and the factory was built in Tyufeleva Grove south of
Moscow, inside a
meander of the
Moskva River, being completed in 1917 just before the
Russian Revolution. It was a modern building with the latest in American equipment and was designed to employ 6,000 workers., and changed its name to Automotive Factory No. 2 Zavod Imeni Stalina (
ZIS or
ZiS), in honour of then-Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin. In the 1930s, facilities were modernised, which allowed the factory to manufacture vehicles with parts that were domestically designed in the Soviet Union, rather than purely licensed and imported models. Following the
German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the ZIS plant was soon evacuated to new facilities in cities further east, including
Ulyanovsk,
Chelyabinsk,
Miass, and
Shadrinsk. These factories continued to manufacturer automobiles as separate entities after the end of the war in 1945. The ZIS plant began manufacturing
refrigerators in 1950. ZIS was a major provider of training, tooling, and technical support for the establishment of
First Automotive Works in 1953, as part of Soviet assistance to the
People's Republic of China. The Jiefang CA-10, based on the Soviet
ZIS-150, was the first Chinese-produced truck and began production in 1956. In 1956, during the
De-Stalinization period, the factory's name was changed again to Zavod imeni Likhachyova ("Factory named after Likhachev") after its former director
Ivan Likhachev. ZiL had a history of exporting trucks to
Cuba, trade resumed in the early 21st century. By the mid-1970s, ZiL was struggling to compete as a truck manufacturer with the newly-built
KAMAZ plant located in
Naberezhnye Chelny. The
ZIL-130 was severely outdated and its main development project, the ZIL-170, was transferred to KAMAZ. Production of the
ZIL-133, a modernised version of the ZIL-130 with a 3
axle configuration, began in 1975 to hold over until a new model could be produced. ZiL began concentrating on development of the ZIL-169 which featured a brand new engine that was designed in-house at the factory. However, testing found serious flaws with the new
transmission, which had to be redesigned. Delays meant that the earliest examples of the ZIL-169 were only produced in 1985, and preparations for full-scale production were only completed just before the
collapse of the Soviet Union. ZIS 101 (1938) 1X7A8090.jpg|
ZIS-101 (1936) ZIS 102 A (1941) 1X7A8092.jpg|
ZIS-102 (1937) ЗИС-Спорт в Музее автомобильной техники УГМК (Верхняя Пышма) 02.jpg|
ZIS-101A Sport (1939) XXVIII выставка Олдтаймер-галерея ЗИС-110 «Такси».jpg|
ZIS-110 (1945) ZiS-110B in Museum of technique 2016-08-16.JPG|
ZIS-110B (1949) ==Limousines==