Krasnodar Mechanical Plant "Kuban"

In spring 1962 the USSR Ministry of Culture adopted a state plan for bus production, aimed at obtaining more campaign vehicles to serve rural areas. The order to build the buses went to the bus and furniture workshop of the Krasnodar repair and production combine, which on 1 May 1962 was reorganised as the Krasnodar mechanical plant for non-standard equipment (Krasnodarskii mekhanicheskii zavod nestandartnogo oborudovaniya).

The first bus was completed in Krasnodar at the end of that year, based on the GAZ-51A and designated Kuban-62, with a body on a wooden frame. The technical documentation and drawings of the KAG-3 bus built at the Kaunas car repair plant were used for this model. Mobile clubs and mobile bookshops, the Kuban-62A, were also built on the bus.

In 1963 the somewhat modernised Kuban-63 bus was completed and went into production. Output rose quickly: 293 were built in 1963, and three years later already 955 buses. Mass production of the existing model was not all: the range was extended with the modernised Kuban-64 mobile club and the Kuban-65A mobile library, and at least one four-wheel-drive prototype bus was built on the GAZ-63.

In the mid-1960s experiments with bodies on steel frames also began; the first two prototypes were completed in 1966, and a little later a batch of 30 of the new Kuban-66 bus. After some design changes the Kuban-66 went into series production in March 1967, by then designated Kuban G1A. It was built in four versions: mobile club, mobile library, mobile cinema and mobile museum.

At the end of the 1960s the plant also designed the G2, G3 and G4 prototypes, the best known being the Kuban G4. In 1969 an order was even given to build a trial batch of 1000 of the latter, but only 30 were made.

In 1975 the GAZ-51A chassis was replaced with the GAZ-5204, and the designation became G1A1. At the same time the bus design was somewhat modernised. GAZ-53 chassis were introduced even later, under plant director Yevgeny Babichev. The GAZ-53-based model was designated Kuban G1A1-01 and, thanks to its longer wheelbase, had more seats than the GAZ-52-based models. For a while models on the GAZ-52 and GAZ-53 were built in parallel, but in 1985 GAZ-5204 chassis were finally dropped. In 1987 the Kuban G1A1-01 also went into production, alongside Krasnodar, at the Budyonnovsk repair and engineering plant in Dagestan.

In 1989 the outdated G1A1-01 was replaced by the Kuban G1A1-02, based on the GAZ-53-11. External differences from its predecessor were a squarer roof, new front side lights and modified tail lights.

A total of 112,500 Kubans were built until 1993 (the 100,000th bus of this make was completed in 1989). By the end of the 1970s annual output had already reached about 9000. Besides cultural institutions, the plant had a wide customer base in agriculture (customers were 60% cultural institutions and 40% others).

See more in the online edition of the Russian magazine "Gruzovik press"!