OREANDA-NEWS. On 19 August 2008 was announced, that an auto race of KAMAZ trucks equipped with Zahnrad Fabrik gearboxes started in Saint-Petersburg.

Auto races with participation of the Russian automobile plant and the German world-class manufacturer have been held since 2006, when their joint enterprise of gearboxes production began to work in Naberezhnye Chelny.

The route of the current race goes through such regional centers of Russia as Yaroslavl, Vologda, Krasnogorsk, Kursk, Voronezh, Saratov, Volgograd, Rostov-na-Donu. The race will be finished on 9 September in the capital of Kuban – Krasnodar. In total the participants of the race will get over 3500 kilometers.

The major task of the auto race is, as before, tracing the operating efficiency of KAMAZ trucks with ZF gearboxes, including information gathering from dealers and, of course, from customers. Presentations of ZF production, demonstration of video films devoted to KAMAZ Inc. and Zahnrad Fabrik will be held in large cities. The employees of Trade and Finance company and KAMAZ Leasing Company will make their reports devoted to improvement of sales and service policy. The designers of KAMAZ R&D Center will speak about new and promising models of KAMAZ trucks. In addition, KAMAZ vehicles with ZF gearboxes will be tested in each city where presentations will be held.

The choice of Saint-Petersburg as a starting point of an auto race is natural and justified. It is the northern and cultural capital of Russia, the country’s main sea gates to Europe and the most important economic citadel of the Russian Northwest. During the years of economic reforms exactly Saint-Petersburg and the Leningrad region became that very “touchstone” on which competence of all players in the Russian automobile market – the most spacious one on the continent – is proved. The representation of automobile companies and their competition here is the highest in Russia.

All this to a large extent defined the composition of the auto caravan of KAMAZ and ZF.

This is a combination on the basis of a biaxial long-haul truck tractor KAMAZ-5460 with a ZF semitrailer-van. The “hauler” of 40 t GVW and maximum safe load on the fifth wheel of 10.5 t is a basic model of its family. In the process of fundamental modernization it absorbed the whole modern experience of KAMAZ in creation of modern equipment.

Another participant of the auto race is a side vehicle KAMAZ-4308. Like the long-haul truck tractor, it became one of the major users of the auto components produced at the joint enterprises of KAMAZ with the leading world-class producers. “Europeanization” and a gradual extension of the family made the KAMAZ medium tonnage truck one of the basic and called-for brands in the Russian market. Its chassis of 6 t carrying capacity serves as a basis for many kinds of special automobile equipment.

For the first time at the auto races KAMAZ-ZF a city bus NEFAZ-5299-20-23 on the basis of special KAMAZ chassis will become the representative of its large family which includes suburban, intercity, sightseeing and “north” models – low entry buses with diesel and gas engines. The bus is equipped with a low-consumption and reliable engine KAMAZ-740.31-240 of an ecological class Euro-3 that is especially important for large cities. NEFAZ-5299-20-23 has a low entry, accommodates over 100 people and is designed for warranty kilometrage of up to 100 thousand km or 18 months of running.