Translated material
Russian Ferrari crash
Marussia Motors was supposed to become the pride of the Russian automobile industry - a compact sports car with a carbon body, six video cameras and Skype on board. The founder of the project, showman Nikolai Fomenko, promised to compete with Ferrari and Lamborghini, the company’s showroom was opened by the Prince of Monaco, and more than $100 million was invested in the development of the “Russian supercar.” However, during the seven years of the brand’s existence, the company did not sell a single car and misled everyone. The story of the big failure is in the material from “Cold”.
We put people at the center of our journalism and talk about people who face injustice, but do not lose spirit and continue to fight for their rights and freedoms. To continue covering people's stories, we need the support of readers - thanks to your donations, we continue to work, despite government pressure.The annual exhibition of exclusive cars and luxury goods in Monaco, called Top Marques Monaco, usually presents new products from world brands - from Bugatti and Rolls-Royce to Koenigsegg and Pagani. Next to the supercars there are stands with luxury watches, jewelry, as well as advertisements for yachts and private jets. Among this luxury, in 2011, the Russian Virgin MVR-02 from Marussia Motors was demonstrated - a new “royal racing” car.
The Marusya stand, as it was called in Russia, was located right on the central alley - opposite the Audi and McLaren sites. The pavilion of the Russian brand was decorated in the style of a Formula 1 garage, and all company representatives were dressed in branded merch, creating the image of technical staff. In addition to the bright racing model, there was also a “civilian” sports car Marussia B1 nearby.
A year earlier, the company announced that it would enter the European market and begin selling Marusya in the UK at a price of about 110 thousand pounds sterling (more than five million rubles at the exchange rate of that year). As stated by the manufacturers, the car was equipped with a carbon body - in the B1 or B2 versions, a 420-horsepower engine in the most expensive configuration and a six-speed automatic transmission. The Russian sports car accelerated to 100 km/h in 4.2 seconds, and the top speed was electronically limited to 250 km/h.
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“People came, we gave them brochures, they with square eyes, not understanding what it was, asked us the question: “What kind of car is this?” And we said, “This is a Russian sports car,” recalls one of the former Marusya employees.
But behind the shiny façade and bright advertising were hidden endless problems. Even the cars shown to the public drove with difficulty: the air conditioning did not work , the speedometer could overestimate the speed by almost 100 km/h, and instead of a spring that returned the brake pedal, according to test driver Roman Rusinov, they even had to attach a condom .
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From ZIL to Monaco
The history of “Marusya” began in 2007 at the Dmitrovsky Automotive Test Site. Showman and racing driver Nikolai Fomenko came there to meet an old acquaintance - engineer Igor Ermilin, with whom he had been friends since the mid-1990s. By that time, Fomenko was already famous: actor, musician, TV presenter, Honored Artist of Russia. Almost everything he touched - from theater to television shows - turned into a successful project.
Cars were his personal passion. While still at the institute, Fomenko began karting, later participated in circuit racing and even became the champion of Russia. Therefore, that meeting with Ermilin, a veteran of Soviet motorsport, was fateful for him. Ermilin once built Soviet Formula racing cars, and by that time he was developing the open racing sports prototype "Phoenix", which he created together with designer Gleb Vizel. The car was just being tested in a wind tunnel, but there was not enough money to continue the project, which Ermilin shared with an old acquaintance.
Fomenko looked at the Phoenix and was inspired by a new idea - to build his own sports car. Just two months after the meeting, he found his first investor - political strategist and adviser to the presidential representative in the Volga Federal District, Efim Ostrovsky. The author of the slogan “Be Russian - buy Russian” agreed to finance the first stage of the project - the creation of the concept of the future Marussia B1 model.
For a company where “everything was needed yesterday,” this was unacceptableFrom the very beginning, Fomenko wanted to make not an elite supercar, but a car that people could actually buy. He used Lotus as a reference, a company with a legendary racing history but a democratic approach to supercars. It was their Lotus Elise model, which appeared in the 1990s, that proved that a sports car could be affordable.
According to designer Gleb Vizel, whose team was responsible for the appearance of the car, at the first discussions they talked about a price of 35–40 thousand euros. This was noticeably higher than the average cost of foreign cars of that time, which cost about 27 thousand dollars per car.
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Madness and Courage
For a car that was planned to be put into production, the development time frame was almost insane. The Marusya team was told that the finished car needed to be presented on December 16, 2008 - the date was allegedly chosen by Ostrovsky based on an astrological forecast. But the company was confident that nothing was impossible, especially when the young team of engineers and designers worked with enthusiasm.
“There was a very good feeling of a startup,” recalls Marusya chief designer Yaroslav Rassadin.
They managed to assemble the car and showed it at the New Manege on the appointed day. At the same time, Fomenko proposed a new name for the brand - Marussia or simply “Marusya”. According to rumors, he was suggested by the showman’s wife Maria Golubkina. At the presentation, where journalists and potential buyers were invited, the Marussia B1 model debuted - a compact sports car with aggressive lines and carbon panels, drawn by Stroganovka student Maxim Shershnev, who now works as a designer at the Romanian automaker Dacia.
The initial price of 40 thousand euros for a Russian sports car eventually more than doubled - to 95 thousand. Fomenko said that now Marusya will compete with such industry pillars as Ferrari and Lamborghini. As designer Gleb Vizel recalled , already during the show more than 10 people expressed a desire to buy a car.
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Production could no longer huddle in a small room at the ZIL plant, so in April 2009 they moved to a larger space - the building of the former Snezhinka household chemicals plant. Already during the May holidays the first full-fledged machine was assembled. And a few more months later, the company received a Russian vehicle approval certificate for the Marussia B1.
Overheating at start
The first year and a half of Marusya's existence seemed like a success. There is constant excitement and advertising on TV - not only in Russia, but also on Russian-language channels in France, Italy, and the USA. The telephones in the sales offices did not stop ringing with calls from potential buyers. Even the popular racing video game series Need for Speed included the Marusya prototype in its game.
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“Marusya” was really ahead of all Russian manufacturers of that time. By 2010, the car had a built-in navigator , six cameras, 320 gigabytes of memory for audio and video, and even an on-board computer with the Internet and Skype .
“It always seemed to me that Marusya is a symbol of the 2000s in Russia, an era when everything was developing very rapidly and everyone thought that they could change the world,” says autoblogger Igor Asanov.
In September 2009, an international motor show took place in Frankfurt, Germany. There, in addition to the Ferrari 458 Italia, Mercedes SLS AMG and the new Porsche 911, three Russian cars were shown : two Marusi B1s and one prototype of the new B2 model. The new product was very different from its predecessor. In addition to the fact that many technical problems were solved, the model looked completely different in appearance.
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According to Igor Ermilin, it was B2 that Fomenko perceived as his personal, author’s project - unlike B1, which, according to his colleague, he was a little “jealous”.
“When we first tested the B1 chassis on ZIL territory, Kolya did not know about it. It was a purely working moment - just to see how it would go. But when I told him, he said that he should have been the first to drive. And it seemed to me that from that moment on he developed something like jealousy - in a good way. Perhaps he began to perceive B1 as more of my project and wanted to do something completely his own,” Ermilin recalled .
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“Nikolai always took the position that if a designer drew it, it means it’s beautiful and the way it should be, and the designers should already decide how to do it conveniently,” recalls Pavel Akimochkin.
As a result, while Marusya was conquering Europe - traveling to exhibitions and offering potential buyers a test drive in Monaco, company employees were coming up with all sorts of tricks on the fly to hide technical problems.
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For all the hares
By mid-2011, the enterprise occupied about 80% of the territory of the Snezhinka complex and had six workshops. The production facilities were constantly being renovated and modern equipment was purchased, including Japanese machining centers capable of milling large parts. Two autoclaves were installed : a three-meter one and a six-meter one, brought from Spain, in which it was possible to “bake” the entire base of the car body.
By that time, the company already employed about 450 people, including the sales department. The team was actively updated: new specialists arrived , who were promised development and large-scale projects. Production capabilities made it possible to produce up to 50 cars per year, but this was not destined to happen.
Having received approval for the production of a limited batch of B1 and B2, the company began preparing for export sales. However, Russian certification did not meet European standards. To enter the international market, it was necessary to confirm the tests and re -certify each component of the car.
The company developed some components, such as the steering, itself. But it was impossible to use such parts abroad: certified production was required . As a result, Marus was forced to purchase ready-made foreign solutions and implement them into an already designed car. According to Pavel Akimochkin, this led to technical compromises and deterioration of the design.
They haven't sold a single car in all this time.The main problem remained the engines. At first, the Marusya company planned to use Renault-Nissan alliance engines in mass production, which were installed in exhibition units, but deliveries, according to Igor Ermilin, fell through after Russian management refused to pay for the components necessary for assembly. In Russia there were no suitable replacement engines - only outdated units like those that were installed on GAZ-53 trucks.
Attempts to reach an agreement with foreign manufacturers also failed . European companies did not want to just sell engines: they offered long-term plans to develop them specifically for Marusya at a great cost. For a company where “everything was needed yesterday,” this was unacceptable.
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“Nikolai reacted quite aggressively to all sorts of comments and suggestions regarding the design. That is, if he wanted to do this, then there was no need to convince him,” recalls Pavel Akimochkin.
At the same time, Fomenko had Napoleonic plans - production of up to 10 thousand cars per year. For comparison: the British Lotus, which Marusya initially looked up to, has only recently reached the level of seven thousand cars per year for more than 70 years of history, and the Italian sports car brand Pagani, next to which the Russian sports car stood in Monaco, produces only 50 units per year.
Fomenko constantly changed the company's strategy. Even without releasing a single fully finished model, Marusya continued to develop new concepts. After the B1 and B2, plans included the F1 and F2 SUVs , the B3 sedan, the front-engine B4, and the L1 limousine . Some projects existed only in the form of mock-ups or 3D models, others reached running prototypes - for example, the F2 based on the SsangYong chassis. Even hydraulically driven versions for the military were discussed .
Unfinished cars were constantly being modified , adding new systems - airbags, additional control units, electronics. The designers admit that the car “was never finished”: each improvement gave rise to new tasks.
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On one of these days, the direction of the company changed dramatically again. Returning from the next tests, the team heard from Nikolai Fomenko: “That’s it, we won’t do this, we now have Formula 1.”
Embrace the immensity
Marussia Motors became the official sponsor of the Virgin Formula 1 team at the end of 2009, before the start of the new season. And already in November 2010, the main investor of Marusya, Andrei Cheglakov, bought a controlling stake in the Virgin Racing team. Fomenko headed its engineering department.
It would seem that participation in the world's most expensive auto racing series seemed like a logical next step - another way to show that Russian automakers can compete with the best. But for the company, this step was the beginning of the end: from that moment, already dwindling resources began to go to racing.
The deal cost about $12 million - not much by motorsport standards, but the further maintenance of the team became unaffordable for Cheglakov: after all, the budget of even the weakest championship teams ranged from $60 to $100 million. Sponsors usually cover a significant portion of team expenses. Marussia Virgin Racing also had them: the Malaysian Qnet, the Russian Betting League - but their contribution was symbolic, and the majority of all expenses of 38 million dollars per season fell on the owner.
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“On the last day at work, we took a photo with the Marusya B2, this dark green serial one that was shown to all investors, shook hands and went our separate ways. We went to all sorts of courts,” recalls former designer Artem Stepanov.
According to Ermilin, Fomenko was the last to leave the “sinking ship”. He tried to save the company and obtain government funding by involving it in 2013 in the “Cortege” project - the development of a presidential limousine and escort vehicles for the FSO.
“Marusya” actually participated in the competition together with the state NAMI (Research Automobile and Automotive Engine Institute, which later created the Aurus brand of luxury cars - Putin drives them today). Marusya even won the tender, beating GAZ, but in the end only NAMI received funding in the amount of about 12 billion rubles. By the way, almost the entire Marussia design department moved there in the spring of 2014.
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“I really regret that everything happened like this. I think that with significantly less funding from Marussia, the project could be implemented in the form of a very successful small-scale production of sports cars in the amount of up to 100 cars per year. Based on what we had, it is quite possible to make a car at the Koenigsegg level with a price of up to a million dollars. But everything turned out the way it often happens in Russia: big money came, and with it a lot of unprofessional, but “close” people,” says Ermilin.
Despite plans for tens of thousands of cars, only about 30 were produced. According to Igor Ermilin, some of them remained in the engineering centers of partners - Continental, Bosch and others. One car was given to the British racing team Status GP, another one is still in the showroom in Monaco.
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Resurrection of "Marusya"
Even years after the completion of the project, Nikolai Fomenko said that he did not consider “Marusya” a failure. “The amount of things we did for the money we had is something few people can achieve. I am proud of this to this day. And at the same time, I didn’t take a penny from the state. We have trained almost 200 amazing engineers who have never done anything like this, and now continue to work in the industry,” he said in an interview with Championship.
In addition, despite the official death, “Marusya” continued to live in the hearts of fans. 10 years after the company’s bankruptcy, autoblogger Grigory Zavozin set himself the goal of reviving this auto production. He is confident that the creation of the first Russian supercar using private funds was an achievement in itself. Now his goal is to continue the history of the brand and show what this car could be with modern technology.
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Now the autoblogger is reviving the project at the Kifato plant in the Moscow region, where he and his team of engineers and designers assemble several Marusya cars at the same time. The team has at its disposal original spare parts and hard drives with design documentation, preserved after the company closed. Based on them, specialists recreate models in computer programs, correct old solutions and adapt them to modern technologies.
Some elements are created anew: metal frames, suspension parts and body elements are made at the factory, and some small components are printed from carbon fiber on 3D printers. In the design of the new version of the car, the team uses a combination of modern materials - in addition to carbon fiber, it contains fiberglass and polymers, as well as adhesive and riveted joint technologies. The main idea of the project is to create a restomod car, that is, an updated version of the original Marusya, built from modern components, but preserving the appearance of the first Russian supercar.
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Zavozin says that he bought them from a former top manager of the company, although before the meeting he didn’t even know who it was. When he told the seller that he was working on reviving the brand, he could not contain his emotions. “I can’t believe it,” he said , bursting into tears, according to Zavozin’s recollections. The autoblogger calls this project his life’s work and emphasizes that he does not consider “Marusya” as a product or an investment: for him it is a goal and a symbol of overcoming. According to him , he wants to “put a comma, not a full stop” in the history of the brand, proving that Marusya is a part of Russian engineering history that deserves to be continued.
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