1949. Between the Soviet Union and America - the "cold war" and what to do if a nuclear war destroyed all stocks of fuel?
And in the USSR started project for create trucks on a couple and fuel for these trucks were...... firewood!
in 1948 was built by an experienced NAMI-012 chassis YAZ-200 (later MAZ-200). Features: three-cylinder steam engine was quite familiar: power - 100 hp, engine rpm - up to 1250 per minute. And the size and weight were even lower than that of diesel engine with manual transmission. True, had heaviest (about one ton) "boiler".
Function lever Gearbox (the box itself is, of course, did not exist) served lever cutoff steam distribution mechanism: provides three cut-off "forward " (25, 40 and 75% filling of the cylinder) and one "back". In the cockpit was three Pedals, as usual, but to squeeze need the clutch only for downshifts.
Following the prototype had been built two more (in late 1949 and mid 1950): they differed more rounded booths . It is curious that this truck tested as truck and tractor.
Tests was conducted in conditions close to the fighting. Frosts reached 40 degrees, water is poured from a nearby lake ... Finally truck a run on the route from Moscow to Yaroslavl and back: first truck - 16,000 kilometers, second - 26 000.
However, as noted in the articles of the time, "in empty due to the heavy weight falling on the front axle the steam car has deteriorated passability. Apparently, on a forest road machine simply was stuck!
Therefore, in 1953, built a fourth copy - all-wheel drive NAMI-018.
This truck had a new transmission: when the rear wheels "slip", began "pulling" front wheels(советская "ABS system"). According to the sources of those years, the patency of NAMI-018 did not yield the most powerful diesel trucks at the time - MAZ-501.
1954...
Stalin, by then long dead, the camps in Siberia were empty, the party changed its course ... And this trucks simply were not needed.
It is now impossible to establish the true causes of their birth, but there is one suggestion. It is not excluded that truck had to play the same role in national defense, and that countless locomotives working on a couple of, standing on sidings. If a nuclear war actually was started then of fuel in the country would remain only wood.... фnd this truck should come in handy! Very well that is not come in handy)
Where and when were cut into scrap this unique Soviet trucks - history is silent ...