Author Topic: Riding a Star - Zvezda Story (Read 17792 times)

faksta · « **Reply #25 on:** January 04, 2014, 09:55:25 PM »

Salut was another project, which was developed in late 1940s. It had no success (apart from a single record in 350cc class in a much improved form in 1949) and was not continued.

As for the Stella, could you be more specific on this matter? I mean, what is Stella, not to mention that there were at least three of them?

Paul Jaray · « **Reply #26 on:** January 05, 2014, 05:00:05 AM »

I'm trying to put order in what I find in some books:
According to 'A-Z of Racing Cars?:
'Stella III': An obscure Russian 500 car of 1951. All that is known is that it had a rear-mounted ZIS 342 engine.
'Svezda': The Svezda Salut was a compact 1952 Russian 500 car which looked not unlike Cooper. Press releases from the URSS suggested that it was a serious F£ car, and photographs showed one receiving the chequered flag at the end of a 'race'. (...). It was all propaganda, however, and magazines which published photographs of the race winnning Svezda suggested, perhaps correctly, that it was a steged picture. Photographs of the 350cc Svezda Record car (...) were also released but nobody took them seriously.
According to a well documented site (that you heve to know

):
Zvezda: The first Zvezda (star) was built in Russia in early 1951 and looks remarkably like the Salut of Derkovskiy and Peltzer. Press releases suggested that it was a serious contender and a photograph was published which allegedly shows one taking the chequered flag however it appears that this may have been largely Soviet propaganda and no car ever raced outside of Russia.
The same car, or possibly simply the same name, appeared again in 1957. The Zvezda 500 was designed by Alexander Peltzer and three cars were ready to compete in 1957 USSR Championship. All of them had streamlined bodies and two-cylinder motorcycle engines IMZ-M52, giving 35hp @ 7000rpm, placed behind rear wheels. Independent suspension for all wheels with springs was used. The frame was made of wide tubes again, an idea borrowed from captured Auto Unions. In 1959-1960 Zvezda 500 cars took one gold and two silvers at USSR Championship rounds. In 1959, Alexander built a second 500, the Nami041M

Salut:The Salut and Salut-M racing cars were the work of Mihail Derkovskiy and Alexander Peltzer. In the spring of 1947, Derkovskiy became a director of a construction bureau for racing cars in USSR and began work on the Salut racing car and also the Pioneer record car.

Now with your reply it makes sense:
In the book there are just the Zvezda 500 (Stella III) and the Salut (Zvezda).
In the site there are the Zvezda 500 (no mention to Stella III but there is the famous pic with the chequered flag) and Peltzer's Zvezdas under the Zvezda name and Peltzer's Salut under the Salut name.

faksta · « **Reply #27 on:** January 05, 2014, 04:46:54 PM »

Quote from: Paul Jaray on January 05, 2014, 05:00:05 AM

'Stella III': An obscure Russian 500 car of 1951. All that is known is that it had a rear-mounted ZIS 342 engine.

I can't think of anything that could match that 'ZIS 342' engine. AMO/ZIS/ZIL was a plant that produced trucks and limousines for government needs (+ some ambulances and taxis, but still large displacement cars). 500cc engine from ZIS does not quite make sense. I'm afraid it's something like a story from AFAIK 1955 magazines that told about a Soviet Formula 1 project which was nothing more than another one of Kharkov record cars built for straights and with no intention of using it on track at all.

Paul Jaray · « **Reply #28 on:** January 05, 2014, 05:01:05 PM »

Is there a pic of the Salut?
I think I understood what happened.
The only question left is:
Is the car in my attachment Peltzer's Salut?
Oh, and what is the translation of Stella, (Svezda?) and Salut?

faksta · « **Reply #29 on:** January 05, 2014, 06:36:54 PM »

There is a picture of Salut, more than one. I'll dig them out tomorrow. The car on your shot is 'Salut M' - an updated version of Salut. And even though I've seen this shot before, I must confess that there are some differences in the car's looks from the one on a better known picture (attached). The 'M' version was heavily modified compared to the initial one. The visble difference is that its bodywork was changed from streamlined closed-wheel body to an open-wheel design. The chief designer of Salut car was not Peltser, though. Mikhail Derkovsky was the man.

'Stella' is a female name (still not sure about this name for a car, though, maybe some kind of a contemporary confusion in Western media, judging by that mention of a 500cc ZIS 342 engine?), with a single L it would mean 'stela', just like in English. 'Salut' is either 'salute' as a form of greeting or 'fireworks', but I'm pretty confident it is the former in this case. 'Zvezda' (or 'Svezda' as they say in the above caption, just a matter of transliteration) is 'star'.

Paul Jaray · « **Reply #30 on:** January 06, 2014, 04:16:32 AM »

Thank you. I took that pic from a site where it was described as a "the first Zvezda (star) was built in Russia in early 1951 and looks remarkably like the Salut of Derkovskiy and Peltzer".
The site suggests it's a different car even if the caption calls it 'Svezda Salut'.
I came to that conlusion too and probably the cofusion is due to those traductions: 'Stella' is the Italian word for 'Star' (Zvezda).
The 'Stella III' from the book (that is not italian !) can be the 342cc 3P engined car from your article.
ZIS make no sense but it could be IMZ (still wrong, according to what you wrote, but closer).