primotipo…

Catchy name for a martini?

The cutaway is a conceptual illustration of the 1958 Russian Kharkov Type 6…

The car was positioned as a potential F1 competitor, in the specification above it would have been an evolution of the Type 6 record-breaker shown below.

As depicted the machine is of ‘advanced paradigm specification’ for the day- powered by a DOHC, twin plug, fuel injected six with rear mounted transaxle in unit with de Dion, coil spring/shock rear suspension and twin wishbones up the front. The body is a nod at the Mercedes W196 Streamliner, the chassis is advanced too- two solid lower longitudinal members but multi-tubular spaceframe in design. Drum brakes were to be used by the look of it.

The car broke cover as shown in the article and photograph below published in ‘Sports Illustrated’ and other newspapers in early 1958.

The ‘1956 Type 6 Monoposto Record Car’ was driven in land speed record attempts by the cars designer/builder Vladimir Nikitin, also variously first-named Konstantin and Vassili.

The cars specification incorporated a Pobeda Agregate (a large Russian car of the forties to seventies) four cylinder, two-valve, single and later two-stage ‘Popieda M20’ supercharged 1970cc (79x100mm bore/stroke) engine which produced circa 200bhp @ 6000rpm. Fitted with a three speed gearbox, all up weight was about 1000kg.

The potent little package achieved a two-way average top speed of 280.156 km/h on 10 December 1953 using the Simpheropol-Djankoy public road in Crimea.

 

Vladimir Konstantinovich Nikitin (1911-1992) was an engineer who developed the successful Kharkov 3 record breaker, the ‘6’ was a development of the earlier car- these were only two of an amazing man’s many creations.

In 1953 Nikitin was one of the founders of the Laboratory of High Speed Automobiles (LSA KhADI), its purpose was to ‘create the fastest cars in the world’. It appears the Kharkov 6 was developed outside this enterprise which begs the question of where it was built- probably the Kharkov Road Engineering Institute. Click here for the achievements of LSA KhADI; http://khadi34.blogspot.com/search?q=nikitin

There was some talk of an F1 car in 1958 but whether that was Russian hype or newspaper ‘puff’ is unclear- nonetheless ‘The Daily Express’ brought the President of the Moscow Automobile Club to the 1958 Silverstone International Trophy meeting- i wonder what the man thought of the racing?

Nikitin’s take on an F1 car would have been interesting, and to a large extent his perspective was a very informed one.

The story of thirteen of Auto Union’s racers making their way from Zwickau to Russia during the autumn of 1945 is reasonably well known. They ended up at the ‘NAMI’ Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute, with most then ‘spread to the winds’ to factories and institutions for further research.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s when Russian Americans Paul and Barbara Karassik were pursuing the missing AU’s in Russia- they were ultimately successful in acquiring the remains of several cars, who should they meet via a chain of coincidences (or brilliant patient detective work) but Nikitin.

He explained that two or three of the Auto Unions had been through his hands at a Technical Institute in Kharkov. Eventually, having won Nikitin’s trust over a number of visits the engineer told them about the two or three Auto Unions he had become familiar with at the Kharkov Institute. Several visits later he admitted he knew where there was another car- in the corner of an old brickworks was an unsalvageable body but a complete chassis, engine, gearbox and many suspension parts all of which the Karassiks acquired via a convoluted process.

Nikitin featured in a Russian film about ‘young people captured by speed and Russia’s oldest racing driver’. Check it out here, my Russian is not too flash but I still enjoyed it..https://www.net-film.eu/film-7575/

One might have thought that Nikitin, with his public success may have been lauded in mother Russia but what the Karassic’s came upon was a man much decorated for his achievements but living in penury…

 

Etcetera…

 

Credits…

The Nostalgia Forum especially contributors Tom West, ‘Flicker’, Marc Ceulemans, Mike Lawrence

Tailpieces…

Nikitin and colleagues around KhADI 7, a helicopter engined machine which exceeded 400km/h in an airport close to Kharkiv in 1968- his next project upped the ante by the use of an aircraft engine from a MIG 19, the only limiting factor was the lack of tyres and a track in the USSR long enough, invitations from the US to run there were unsuccessful…

I have no idea at all but it does have a touch of the Auto Unions about it does it not?!

Finito…