Caterpillar all-terrain vehicle from AvtoVAZ! Very interesting car!
All-terrain vehicles always attract my attention, and not only mine. I have been wanting to build some kind of all-terrain vehicle for a very long time. I hope this spring I will begin to realize this dream of mine.
Recently, I already wrote about a Swedish-made articulated tracked all-terrain vehicle that has been on sale lately. I found it on a popular site selling various kinds of special equipment. I do not stop my search for interesting all-terrain vehicles. And the other day I discovered a very interesting car on tracks of domestic production! I was very interested to learn more about this unit.
The domestic all-terrain vehicle SHM-8 is called, which stands for “snowmobile vehicle”. Visually, this car is very similar to the Swedish Volvo BV206 amphibious all-terrain vehicle. If not considered in detail, the machines can easily be confused. But despite this, the domestic all-terrain vehicle has been completely designed and built recently on domestic components without foreign borrowings.
If we compare the VAZ and Swedish all-terrain vehicles for their intended purpose, then all-terrain vehicles do not completely match. Swedish was originally built for military purposes, and domestic for civilian purposes.
First of all, the CXM-8 all-terrain vehicle, which also has its own name Vega, was built for the needs of the Ministry of Emergencies recently. For rescue operations in places with deep snow cover, mainly in the mountains. Due to its articulated frame layout and two independent track platforms, the all-terrain vehicle has phenomenal flotation in the deepest snow.
The second application that the designers conceived for this machine is the maintenance of ski resorts. The beginning of the design of the machine was laid in 1990, not long before the collapse of the USSR. And the first samples saw the light in 1991. It is worth noting here that there were simply no such cars in the domestic segment.
The car was planned to be used as a snowcat, for leveling and compacting ski slopes and for delivering skiers to places where there are no stationary lifts.
The carrying capacity of the machine is 1200 kilograms. 400 for the front with the engine and 800 for the back with the body. This carrying capacity is enough to transport 14 people in ski equipment. But for this, a second cabin must be installed above the body. Cars with cabs instead of a body were also produced at AvtoVAZ in the factory version.
All tracks, as I said, are leading. They, like everything in this all-terrain vehicle, are of domestic production. The rubber tracks themselves, 50 centimeters wide, were taken from a snowmobile. There is also a lock in the rear bogie, which allows you to lock the tracks together.
As I said, the car was designed primarily for the Ministry of Emergency Situations recently. For these purposes, it was released in a small batch. Despite their age, these machines are still working, helping rescuers in their difficult task. A number of cars were sold into private hands, like the one that is now for sale.
CXM-8 cars were produced at the AvtoVAZ division “Special Transport Enterprise AVTOVAZTRANS”. They consist, as I said, entirely of domestic components. Engine from VAZ-2106, transmission from different parts from VAZ 2106 and Niva cars. This makes the car very maintainable in any corner of our country.
The car develops speed up to 35 km per hour. VAZ units, unlike traditional loads on a wheeled car, experience less load and, accordingly, fail less often.
As for the copy that I saw on the site for the sale of equipment, it is in excellent condition. The engine is brand new according to the owner. The body is painted with a high-impact Raptor coating. From the photographs, the appearance and condition of the interior can be assessed independently. It looks like the car has been followed.
As for the price, they want to get 890 thousand conditional units for this car. In my opinion, this is a reasonable price tag. Such machines from other manufacturers are many times more expensive!