In the USSR, one of the most popular trucks was the ZIL-130. There is a lot of talk on the net about why it was painted in blue. It was the most popular color at the time. This does not mean that in the USSR there was only one type of paint, but the fact is that during the assembly of the first cars, only this paint was available, the people were so used to this color that automakers decided to leave this color for further use. Plus, the developer of this car insisted on this.
Why was the blue color a priority in painting those same ZIL-130s !? This question now torments all lovers of Soviet technology. Maybe someone knows the answer to this question, but I will try to explain it for the less knowledgeable. There are many different versions and guesses, but we will not find out the exact reason, taking into account the history of the creation of the car and the era of the Soviet Union itself. If you think about it, then in fact, there were a lot of ZILs in other colors, at least in my entire life I saw only a few cars in other colors, and not in blue or blue, as anyone likes. For example, firefighters or military vehicles were equipped with a different color, not blue. After reading some information, I singled out for myself a couple of more or less plausible versions of why, after all, most of the ZIL-130 were painted blue.
The history of the creation of the truck.
ZIL-130 was one of the most common cars in the Soviet Union, which was produced until 1994 at the Likhachev Plant. It was produced in various modifications, but the basis was the ZIL-130 base. After the release was moved to the Ural Automobile Plant, production at this plant lasted from 1995 to 2014.
ZIL-130 has earned its popularity as a reliable and unpretentious car. In agriculture, in the army, even in export, the car showed itself in an excellent way, so a simple 8-cylinder engine with a five-speed gearbox was installed on this ZIL model. The cockpit was spacious and comfortable.
Version one..
Here I will assume that in those distant times a large amount of blue paint was produced and there was nowhere to put it, so we decided to paint the well-known truck in this color, rearing to distinguish it from the gray mass of Soviet cars. In the USSR, in fact, there were only a couple of colors in which almost everything was painted. This is the kind of paint that got to the Likhachev plant.
In one of the newspapers there was an article - the son of one of the workers of the plant told a story that his father once gave him a secret, so to speak, they say that this paint was stored in tanks at the plant and no one knew what to do with it. Therefore, they decided to paint ZIL-130 with this paint in order to "use up" the entire large supply. In factories, even military equipment was painted green, which was obtained by mixing blue and yellow paints. It is not known how much this is true, but such an option can be admitted.
Version number two..
I'll make a reservation right away that I like this option better, since, in my opinion, it seems more real. So, everyone knows that the cab was painted in two colors - this is the main blue, and the "front" of the car was white, or rather the radiator grill. And it is no coincidence that she is the way we know her. The thing is that the designer of the ZIL-130 was Sabo Erik Vladimirovich - the legend of design thought of that time. He believed that this particular truck should be exactly like this - this is the design color scheme of Sabo himself. Although, it should be said that the technical and physical equipment does not belong to Sabo, he offered only the color design, and the management of the plant took this into account, introducing it into production.
These are, at first glance, simple and very original versions of why the ZIL-130 was painted in blue or light blue.
Which version do you like best?
