Coldfire Craft - Long before the internet knitted the world together and car culture spread at the speed of a swipe, engineers relied on imagination, intuition, and whatever tools their political climate allowed. Sometimes that pressure created unlikely sparks of creativity—moments when ambition quietly challenged boundaries.
One of the boldest examples from that era is a small,
little-known sports car that tried to bring Western-style performance to the Eastern bloc:
the KD Sport 900.
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The 1963 KD Sport 900 is designed by a group of designers working for the NAMI (National Automobile Institute) in Moscow. (Picture from: Classic and Recreation Sportscars)
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Born during the height of the Cold War, this compact coupe emerged from a world split in two, where Western machines were idolized yet officially off-limits. Porsche was conquering racetracks across Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s, its cars celebrated for their sharp engineering and sleek silhouettes. Enthusiasts behind the Iron Curtain watched from afar as these nimble machines shaped automotive dreams.
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| Only
6 of these fibreglass bodied Zaporozhets/Zaz 965-based KD Sport 900
cars were made in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and 1960s. (Picture from: QuirkyRides) |
Even if the politics of the time forbade using rival technologies, admiration proved difficult to contain. That admiration eventually pushed a handful of Soviet designers to attempt something remarkable—craft their own alternative. Their work began within
NAMI,
the National Automobile Institute in
Moscow,
where a small team quietly envisioned a “Soviet Porsche.”
Nothing about the project was sanctioned by the state, which made the
effort both fragile and risky.
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| The Soviet Union made sports cars, which is said to be similar to Porsche looked very stylish on the Moscow' busy streets at the time. (Picture from: EnglishRussia) |
The designers knew their work could easily be halted, but they pursued it anyway, supported by a crucial ally: Kuzma Durnov. As Director of the ZAZ (Zaporozhsky Avtomobilny Zavod) plant in Ukraine, Durnov believed in the vision strongly enough to give it life. His initials later became immortalized in the vehicle’s name—KD Sport 900. KD in the name refer to the name of Kuzma Durnov.
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| The 1963 KD Sport 900 is built on the basis of the ZAZ-965 as a small 2+2 sports coupe. (Picture from: EnglishRussia) |
ZAZ,
known today mostly for its quirky small cars,
had only been producing passenger vehicles since 1958 after years of manufacturing agricultural machinery. Its early model,
the Zaporozhets 965, borrowed heavily from the layout of
the Fiat 600 and became the mechanical foundation for the new sports car. While hardly exotic, this modest platform was accessible and adaptable, making it the best canvas available for the ambitious team.
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| The 1963
KD Sport 900 had two seats ahead and two small ones in the back with
the front console was turned to the driver like we could see later in
many more contemporary cars. (Picture from: EnglishRussia) |
The first KD Sport 900 prototype rolled out in
1963,
shaped into a compact 2+2 coupe with a surprisingly modern presence.
Designers crafted a tubular steel frame wrapped in a lightweight fiberglass body—an unusually forward-thinking choice for the Soviet automotive world at the time.
The car’s styling was fluid and aerodynamic,
with proportions that echoed European sports cars without directly copying them. Seen cruising Soviet streets, it must have looked completely out of place—in a good way.
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| One of the KD Sport 900 is planned to be restored. (Picture from: EnglishRussia) |
Inside,
the cabin offered two primary seats up front and two smaller ones tucked behind them.
The dashboard angled subtly toward the driver,
a layout that would become common in later decades but felt unconventional for the era. The overall impression was of a car striving to be playful and sporty, even if its mechanical reality told a different story.
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| And this is one more car stays abandoned and maybe someday it would be restored too. (Picture from: EnglishRussia) |
Under the rear hood sat an air-cooled 887 cc V4 engine borrowed straight from the ZAZ-965.
With just 30 horsepower and a 4-speed manual gearbox,
the KD Sport 900 was far from
a Porsche rival in performance terms.
Its lightweight construction—
slightly over 500 kilograms—
helped,
but only enough to nudge the top speed to just under 75 mph. On paper, that figure fell short of sports car credentials. Yet the vehicle’s appeal was never entirely about speed. It represented an act of creative defiance, an attempt to dream beyond the limits of Soviet industry.
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| A modern interpretation of the KD Sport 900 in digital rendered image made by Artem Popkov. (Picture from: AutoEvolution) |
Between 1963 and 1969,
the project continued in small bursts of effort.
Early hopes for limited production faded as resources tightened and priorities shifted. By the time the project was shelved, fewer than ten examples had been completed, each with small differences that reflected the experimental nature of the work.
Today,
only six cars are widely acknowledged to have survived from that period, making
the KD Sport 900 extraordinarily rare.
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| Here's the Russian-made car is depicted in what is seen as partly a muscle car, and a swoopy European coupe. (Picture from: AutoEvolution) |
Decades later,
interest in this obscure coupe has resurfaced in digital form. As published on
Autoevolution,
Russian automotive designer Artem Popkov created a contemporary reinterpretation of the KD Sport 900—
an imagining that blends muscular lines with the elegant curves of European grand tourers.
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| The modern KD imagined is one of the most stunning digital creations we've seen so far. (Picture from: AutoEvolution) |
His modern vision transforms the original’s simplicity into something visually striking, proving that the spirit behind the car still resonates. Even rendered only in images, his redesign captures the charm and proportions that made the original fascinating: a mix of strangeness and sincerity that instantly draws attention.
The KD Sport 900 stands today as one of those overlooked engineering stories that quietly challenge stereotypes about the Soviet automotive world. It wasn’t powerful, it wasn’t mass-produced,
and it never threatened Porsche’s reputation, but it carried something harder to measure—a willingness to dream beyond political and technological constraints. In a time when borders dictated access and curiosity often met obstacles, this little coupe showed how far determination and imagination could go.
*** [EKA [12022021] | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | AUTOEVOLUTION | CLASSICANDRECREATIONSPORTSCARS | DRIVENTOWRITE | HOTCARS | ENGLISHRUSSIA | QUIRKYRIDES | MOTORJUNKIE ]Note: This blog can be accessed via your smart phone.
His modern vision transforms the original’s simplicity into something visually striking, proving that the spirit behind the car still resonates. Even rendered only in images, his redesign captures the charm and proportions that made the original fascinating: a mix of strangeness and sincerity that instantly draws attention.
