ZIL Logo: From the Stalin Plant to the Likhachev Plant

ZIL began with a wartime order for 1,500 army vehicles in 1916. Its three letters later changed with Soviet history, from the Stalin Plant to the Likhachev Plant.

Country: Russia
Active: 1916 to 2013
Founded by: Kuznetsov, Ryabushinsky and Co trading house

A wartime order on the Moscow River

ZIL began with a war and a contract. In 1916, with Russia fighting the First World War, the trading house Kuznetsov, Ryabushinsky and Co signed up to deliver 1,500 vehicles to the army. To build them, it needed a factory. The charter of the new company was approved on 18 May 1916, and on 2 August the foundations of AMO, the Moscow automobile plant, were laid in Tyufeleva Roshcha, a grove on the floodplain of the Moscow River.

The plan was to build 1.5 ton trucks under licence from Fiat, based on the Italian Fiat 15 Ter. Revolution got in the way. The plant was nationalised in 1918 and spent the next years mostly repairing old machines.

Then, on 1 November 1924, the first AMO-F-15 truck was assembled. It was still built on the old Fiat design, but it counted as one of the very first Soviet trucks. Six days later, ten of them drove through the parade on Red Square. That same year the factory became the First State Automobile Plant.

Three names, one factory

The plant was rebuilt from top to bottom at the turn of the 1930s. The reconstruction dragged on until the end of 1931, and the renewed factory started work on 1 October 1931. According to the motoring magazine Za Rulem, it launched the first assembly line in the USSR.

By then the factory carried a new name: the 1st State Automobile Plant named after I.V. Stalin. Shortened, that became ZIS, from Zavod imeni Stalina, the Stalin Plant. It was the name carried by the plant’s trucks and, from the 1930s, by the country’s first home-grown limousines.

The third name came in 1956. Ivan Likhachev, who had led the plant in the 1920s and become one of the organisers of Soviet machine building, died that year, and the factory was named after him. ZIS became ZIL: Zavod imeni Likhacheva, the Likhachev Plant.

What the letters say

The ZIL logo is, above all, a name. The three letters are an abbreviation, and they told you whose plant this was. First it was Stalin’s, then, after 1956, Likhachev’s. One letter changed, and with it a whole era.

Some early cars added a bit more theatre. Za Rulem notes that a ZIS-101 prototype shown in the Kremlin in 1936 wore a bird-shaped ornament on its nose, while production cars had a banner above the radiator grille.

What we could not find is an official explanation of how the ZIS or ZIL emblem was drawn, who designed it, or what its shapes were meant to mean. So we’re sticking with what’s certain: the letters stand for the factory and the man it was named after.

The company kept those letters to the end. When it was privatised on 23 September 1992 it became AMO ZIL, a name that joined the very first initials of 1916 with the last ones.

Video: ZIL Limousine Evolution 1936 to 2012 | Soviet Luxury State Cars History (Lux Auto X)

Trucks for the country, limousines for the Kremlin

ZIL lived a double life. Most of its output was hard-working trucks. A separate shop built the limousines that carried the leaders of the Soviet Union.

Landmark ZIS and ZIL vehicles, decade by decade

1924: AMO-F-15. The plant’s first truck, a 1.5 ton model based on the Fiat 15 Ter, assembled on 1 November 1924.
1934: ZIS-5. A truck that went into production in 1934 and stayed in it for 15 years.
1936: ZIS-101. The first Soviet-built limousine. Assembly line production began on 3 November 1936.
1942: ZIS-110. Work on this top-class government limousine started in September 1942, in the middle of the war, on Stalin’s orders.
1962: ZIL-111G. A restyled version of the late 1950s ZIL-111, built until 1967. It became the main car of Leonid Brezhnev.
1964: ZIL-130. The truck went into mass production in 1964 and stayed on the line until 1994.
1976: ZIL-4104. Successor to the ZIL-114 of 1967, it served four general secretaries, from Brezhnev to Gorbachev.

The end came slowly. Output fell in the 2000s, and the Moscow government, which had built up a majority stake, tried to keep the plant alive. In late 2013 the assembly line stopped for good. That same October the city approved a plan to turn the huge industrial zone into housing, parks and embankments, and in 2020 the last working shop was demolished. Today the ZIL name lives on mainly in the new developments on the site, such as the ZILART quarter.

ZIL shared the Soviet roads with other makers that have pages here, including GAZ, UAZ, Lada and ZAZ. For more old badges, see our classic car logos.

Frequently asked questions

What does ZIL stand for?

Zavod imeni Likhacheva, the Likhachev Plant. The Moscow factory was named after Ivan Likhachev, a former head of the plant, in 1956, the year he died.

What was ZIS?

ZIS was the plant’s earlier name, short for Zavod imeni Stalina, the Stalin Plant. Cars and trucks such as the ZIS-5, ZIS-101 and ZIS-110 carried it until the factory became ZIL in 1956.

When was ZIL founded?

In 1916. The plant was founded as AMO by the trading house Kuznetsov, Ryabushinsky and Co, and its foundations were laid in Moscow on 2 August 1916.

Does ZIL still make vehicles?

No. Vehicle assembly at the plant stopped in 2013, and the site in Moscow has since been turned into a new district with housing and parks.