Did the USSR Build a Nuclear Car in the 1960s?
If you have watched “Fallout” or played any of the video games, you are aware that cars with nuclear engines are comparatively ubiquitous. In the real world, it is not the case, but only because such cars are not useful. A almost limitless energy supply is fantastic, but one mishap might result in a nuclear catastrophe on the roads. In any case, Ford considered the Nucleon, a nuclear-powered concept vehicle, in the 1950s.
Although Western automakers dropped the idea in the 1950s, there were reports coming out of the Soviet Union that another nuclear-powered vehicle was in the works. The claimed top-secret nuclear-powered vehicle, known as the “Volga Atom,” was created in the USSR during the 1950s and 1960s. Many experts have questioned the existence of such a vehicle, and its presence has been the subject of intense dispute over the years. There is a real car on permanent display at a museum, but the rumors are still going strong.
Because of this, the Volga Atom’s myth or reality endures, leading many to question whether the USSR actually constructed the device in the 1960s. The Volga Atom and other nuclear concept cars are intriguing because they are conceivable in theory. The size of nuclear reactors has decreased, and the Soviet Union created the EGP-6, the smallest commercial nuclear reactor in the world. A nuclear-powered automobile is theoretically possible because other reactors made for spacecraft are even smaller, although it is still unclear if the USSR ever built one.
The Volga Atom
When a Soviet official viewed the Ford Nucleon model at an exhibition in 1958, the unverified tale of the Volga Atom was born. He reportedly delivered his results to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who reportedly ordered the USSR to construct a comparable vehicle. Rumor has it that Soviet designers unveiled a prototype of the vehicle in 1965. According to accounts, the car’s four-cylinder engine was powered by Uranium-235, the only naturally occurring fissile isotope, and it was built on the GAZ-21 Volga, based on the chassis.
Despite the lack of documentary proof, the rumors continue to circulate. The engine of the alleged concept automobile could have produced 320 horsepower, but it overheated and caused the vehicle to slow down. The project was abandoned because the design was unsuitable for the commercial market. That is the story, however it is still unclear if the assertion is true. The USSR’s auto sector was mostly dependent on imitating Western models, but it did not use military technology.
The existence of the Volga Atom is probably a myth. Although a real car that is on permanent exhibit at a museum in Nizhny Novgorod can be found online, it is probably just a mock-up. The actual automobiles built by manufacturers were only a vision of what might be in the future after nuclear technology advanced, much like many other nuclear-powered concept cars of the era. If the Atom had worked, it could have traveled more than 124,000 miles with just 12 grams of uranium-235, but considering the technology available at the time, it would have also have weighed more than 50 tons.
