A catalog of spare parts for the Soviet Volga was found on the US CIA website

Telegram channel “Autopotok” noticed that on the official website of the Central Intelligence Agency in the section of partially declassified archives there is technical documentation dedicated to the GAZ-21. The Americans have digitized the entire 263-page book from the Mashgiz publishing house. The catalog of spare parts for the Soviet Volga was declassified relatively recently: in December 2011.

The US authorities have still not disclosed the name of the intelligence officer who took the GAZ-21 catalog from the USSR, and the purpose of the document. However, the CIA became interested in the design of the Soviet car during a period of highest tension between countries: the Volga design began to be studied in the summer of 1962, just a few months before the Caribbean Crisis.

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A catalog from the archives of the American intelligence service appeared in print in 1960, and at that time the Volga GAZ-21 was the most advanced mass-produced passenger car in the USSR. Of course, not all versions were described in the open press: Mashgiz analyzed seven modifications – M-21, M-21A, M-21B, M-21D, M-21E, M-21I and M-21K. That is, the American intelligence officer received information about the general design, basic and export versions (including automatic transmission!), as well as taxis.

Most likely, the Americans needed the Volga catalog to study the equipment of their geopolitical enemy, and the removal of the secrecy stamp only half a century later is explained by the general rules of working with CIA archives.

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