Did The USSR Really Build A Nuclear-Powered Car In The 1960s?

If you've seen "Fallout" or played any of the games, you know that nuclear-powered cars are relatively commonplace. That's not true in the real world, but that's only because such vehicles aren't practical. After all, a near-unlimited energy source is great, but a single accident could lead to a potential nuclear meltdown on the roadways. Regardless, Ford entertained the idea of a nuclear-powered concept car called the Nucleon in the 1950s.

While Western car manufacturers abandoned the concept in the '50s, rumors arose from the Soviet Union suggesting that another car powered by nuclear energy was being developed. The so-called Volga Atom is an alleged top-secret nuclear-powered car developed in the USSR in the 1950s and '60s. The existence of such a vehicle has been hotly debated over the years, and many experts have cast doubts as to its existence. Still, the rumors remain, and there's even a physical car sitting on permanent display at a museum.

As a result, the myth or truth of the Volga Atom remains, leaving many to wonder if the USSR truly built the thing back in the '60s. What's fascinating about the Volga Atom and other nuclear concept cars is that they're theoretically possible. Nuclear reactors have shrunken in size, and the Soviets developed the EGP-6, the world's smallest commercial nuclear reactor. Other reactors designed for spacecraft are even smaller, so there's at least a theoretical possibility of a nuclear-powered car, but the question remains — did the USSR actually build one?

The unconfirmed story of the Volga Atom began in 1958 when a Soviet official saw the Ford Nucleon model at an exhibition. According to some reports, he shared his findings with Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev, who ordered the development of a similar car in the USSR, and it's rumored that Soviet designers presented a prototype in 1965. From the look of the car's chassis, the vehicle was based on the GAZ-21 Volga and, according to reports, had a four-cylinder engine powered by Uranium-235, the only naturally occurring fissile isotope.

There is no documentary evidence proving this to be true, but the rumors persist. The purported concept car had an engine capable of producing 320 horsepower, but it overheated, slowing the vehicle down. This made it an unpalatable design for the commercial market, and the project was killed. That's the story, but the veracity of the claim remains in question. The USSR's automobile industry was largely reliant on copying Western examples but not through the incorporation of military technology.

The Volga Atom's existence is likely a myth. While there is a physical car you can find online that's on permanent display at a Nizhny Novgorod museum, it's likely only a mock-up. Like many other nuclear-powered concept cars of the time, the physical vehicles created by manufacturers were merely an idea of what could be in the future once nuclear technology had caught up. Had the Atom functioned, it would have been able to travel over 124,000 miles off only 12 grams of Uranium-235, but it would also have likely weighed over 50 tons, given the technology of the era.