ZIL 157-K-PARM. Power – 92 hp (5.5 l). Made in 1964. Moscow transport museum

The ZIL-157 is a general-purpose 2+1⁄2-ton 6×6 truck, produced at the Lichachev plant in the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1977, when production was transferred to the Amur plant, since the Lichachev plant wanted to focus more on modern trucks, such as the ZIL-131 truck. Nevertheless, production of the ZIL-157 trucks continued even after the fall of the Soviet Union, but eventually ended in 1994.

The ZIL-157 started being produced in 1958, based on the ZIL-164 truck, as a replacement for the ZIS-151 that was based on the ZIS-150 truck, which was based on the International KR-11 trucks.

The ZIL-157 truck, like its many predecessors, was mostly intended for use by the Red Army, but it was also popular with forestry companies, and was thus also used as a log truck, specifically the ZIL-157V semi-truck version. In 1977 the production of the truck was moved to Novouralsk by the UamZ company. The Lichachev plant likely did the move in order to focus their main production efforts on more modern trucks in the same class, such as the ZIL-131 truck.

The UamZ company continued producing the truck even after the fall of the Soviet Union until 1994.

Around 797,934 trucks were produced by the Lichachev plant and a further 160,000 in the UamZ plant. The truck was also produced in China as the Jiefang CA30 until 1986.

Read more: History of trucks with Jim Andrews ...