Modernizing the Latvian car fleet: the Ford Vairogs story

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Recently, the PreWarCar.com team visited the Riga Motor Museum in Latvia, and we noticed the Vairogs name on one of the Ford motorcars. This was new to us so we tried to find out more.

The newly founded Republic of Latvia had an acute need for new jobs as well as for modern cargo trucks, buses and cars at an affordable price, prompting the government to begin car production. In 1936, it acquired the licence to build Ford cars and trucks, and the wagon stock company Vairogs established a car division which assembled those vehicles from 1937 to 1940. 

The first Ford-Vairogs vehicles left the factory gates in September 1937. It was a three-ton truck with a V8 engine developing 85 horsepower. A year later, production began on the five-seater Ford-Vairogs V8 Standart (as exhibited in the museum), a car for the middle-class, and seven-seater taxis, as well as assembly of the Ford 10.

Vairogs developed its car-building skills so succesfully that soon it produced almost the entire spectrum of passenger cars, trucks, dumper trucks, buses, ambulances and fire engines. However, when Latvia lost its independece in 1940 due to the war, the factory was nationalized and production halted. Car asssembly was not renewed after the war. The Rīgas Vagonbūves Rūpnīca (Riga Railcar Factory) was established in the old Vairogs plant.

A total of 300 passenger cars and more than 1,000 trucks had been built in the three years before. Of those, two cars are in the museum. One is the aforementioned 1939 Standart V8, the factory's first passenger car. This example survived in its original state and was restored in the 1980s by members of the Antique Automobile Club of Latvia. The other car in the museum is a 1938 Ford-Vairogs 10 Junior de Luxe, which was assembled in accordance with the Ford licence. By removing the roof and side windows, 20 off-road vehicles were made for use by the Latvian Army. This example was restored back to its original state by the Museum.
 

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