This Is "Uranus" - A Russian SUV With A 16-liter Diesel Engine

One of the participants in the project for the development of the Uranus off-road vehicle spoke about the history of the creation of a unique car equipped with a 16-liter diesel engine. The car was invented by the Petersburg constructor and designer Gennady Khainov.

• In the early 1990s, Khainov bought an infantry fighting vehicle (BMP) engine - an UTD-20 diesel engine with a volume of 16 liters and a power of 300 hp. (980 Nm). Later he managed to acquire the half-shafts of the BTR-60 drives. From all these details, the designer conceived to create a civilian SUV.
• Gennady Khainov began work on the drawings in the second half of the 1990s, and by 1998 a preliminary appearance of the car on paper was ready. A year later, a customer was found - a Moscow businessman and lover of exotic cars - and the creation of a real SUV began.
• The design is based on a space frame with four bearing spars welded from a steel rectangular profile. The engine was placed in the front, and the transmission was assembled from the gearbox and hand-outs of the ZIL-131 truck. A custom multiplier was installed between the UTD-20 and the gearbox.
• The suspension arms were placed inside the frame so that they rest on pneumatic cushions from the LiAZ bus. Two 120-liter fuel tanks fit between the frame side members.

• The external fiberglass panels are hung on the steel pipe load-bearing frame, and the bumpers of the Uranus are welded from sheet metal 3-5 millimeters thick. But not without borrowing here too. The two-layer side windows are glued together from "VAZ" ones: the front ones from the Oka, and the rear ones from the "nine". One of the two sunroofs is taken from the Mercedes-Benz S-Class W140 series. Hand-made leather upholstery in a St. Petersburg studio - for seven thousand dollars. The Uran badge on the tailgate is made up of the letters of one of the Subaru models.
• Work on the SUV was completed in 2004, but the car did not reach the customer. He was elected a deputy of the State Duma and he did not want to appear in public in such a unique car. As a result, the customer still took the car, but only in 2015. Now "Uran" stands motionless at one of the tourist centers in the Moscow region.