Why did they do it, because they could! School friends Matt McGrath and Gerry O’Keeffe and a long list of their friends, bought a 1970s Russian van, rebuilt it as a special, drove it to Siberia and if that wasn’t enough set a Guinness World Record while they were there.
Their plan was to buy a 4×4 to convert into a support vehicle for a group of Irish and international motorcyclists riding their KTMs in the ‘Baikal Mile Ice Speed Festival’ in southern Siberia in February of 2020. This race festival was held for the first time in 2019 on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal on three prepared ice tracks up to 1 mile (1.6 km) in length.
With the aim of setting various speed records on ice an eclectic mixture of vehicles compete including cars, buggies, all terrain vehicles, quads motorcycles, tracked motorcycles, uni motos, karts, bicycles and even a Bentley GT on tracks. Along with speed events, there are several classes including drag racing, drift, flat track, freestyle moto extreme and stunt riding.
++ If you enjoy the stories we share each week, we’d be grateful for your support. Every contribution helps us continue documenting and preserving Ireland’s transport heritage.
You can become a supporter for just €2 per month:
While Dennison Trailers kindly sponsors the Ireland Made website, all filming and production costs including travel, equipment, editing software, Meta verification, music licensing and long term data storage are completely self-funded by Kevin Reid.
++
LAKE BAIKAL
Located in southern Siberia, Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest (1,642 m), and largest freshwater lake with extremely clear water. The lake is 636 km (395 mi) long and 79 km (49 mi) wide and is frozen from January to May. One of the most important priorities during the Festival was respect for the natural environment and the Russian Ministerial department ‘VKH Development’ were on site to monitor the vehicles and eliminate any negative consequences for the environment.
UAZ ORIGINS
The vehicle chosen by Team Baikal was a UAZ-452 4×4 built in 1976 in the eastern Russian city of Ulyanovsk and bought from an army surplus collector in Co Meath. The UAZ-452 began its life as a radio car with an external antenna and internal mountings for radios.
In a shed in Co Laois Team Baikal got to work on what was to become a 7 month build. Firstly they separated the UAZ body from its chassis. Then a wooden template was made to match the original chassis and then offered up to a donor Land Cruiser chassis for the refitting of the body. To make best use of the Land Cruiser Hi Lux chassis which was longer than the original UAZ a decision was made to cut and lengthen the UAZ body. Brendan Tyrell of Tyrell Restoration in Co Wexford custom made new panels for the floor wall and roof and they were welded into place.
A 3 litre Toyota Hi Lux engine with a 5 speed gearbox was fitted along with the myriad of parts and the big and small jobs required to make a workable 4×4 special including high lift suspension a new steering column and a stove in the cabin for heating.
JOURNEY EAST
The UAZ special passed its DOE with flying colours and the drive to the test centre was its longest spin prior to being driven to Finland over Christmas 2019 for a shake down and photoshoot with the Team Baikal sponsors.
When the UAZ came back from Finland some further mechanical fettling took place and then it was put on a truck to Lithuania and driven from there to Moscow. From Moscow its epic journey continued and the UAZ was loaded onto another truck and driven to the town of Maksimikha on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal in the Republic of Buryatia arriving in February 2020.
The UAZ was the first forward control vehicle where the driver sits forward of the front steerable wheels to be built in the Soviet Union and later in Russia. There were many variants of the UAZ and each of them were held in high affection with appropriate nicknames. The van became known as the bukhanka loaf the Ambulance tabletka a pill and the pick up golovastik tadpole.
The UAZ was simple and robust with a conformity of body design in most of the model variants. Typically aside from the driver and passenger doors there was a single wing door on the right side of the van and at the rear a double wing door although there were multiple variants on the market.
The engine was located in the front between the driver and passenger seats and was capable of running on varying types of low octane petrol with 76 octane preferred. Fuel was supplied from two separate fuel tanks with filling ports on either side of the vehicle.
The UAZ is still in production today and what was once a robust and mechanically simple 4×4 van has acquired headrests on the front seats injury reducing plastic steering wheel ABS brakes power steering seat belts and the low emissions Euro 4 engine as standard equipment.
Check out Part 2: 1976 UAZ-452 special sets World Speed Record (Part 2) | Season 1 – Episode 72
If you have an idea for a story, please email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Sources of Information, Photo, Video & Music Credits:
All music and sound effects used in Ireland Made – Stories of Irish Transport are royalty free and are fully licensed through Epidemic Sound. Ireland Made – Stories of Irish Transport therefore holds the legal right to use this audio material within its productions under the terms of the Epidemic Sound licensing agreement.
Photo & Video Credit: Matt McGrath
Photo Credit: Egidijus Babelis
Credit: Matt McGrath Gary O’Keeffe James McGrath Mick Chester Norman Vance Brendan Tyrell Darren Hyland Seamus and Paul Cranny CJ from Canada Mark Kemp and Ken.
