ZIL » 135M / 135KM

In March 1961, ZIL begun to develop of an upgraded chassis ZIL-135KM, known as ZIL-135M, with a new, more spacious cabin, which was determined by military requirements for the installation of a self-propelled missle launcher SPU-35. The missle was placed inside a cylindrical launcher with the length reduced to 10.5 m,. This allowed to place a crew of five people in a new extended twin-row cabin. Two prototypes of ZIL 135M were made on April 1st and May 1st, 1962. Their only technical diffrerence was gears in the transfer gearbox which allowed to increase the maximum speed to 65 kph.

Assembling of ZIL-135M was sent to the Bryansk Vehicles Factory. Designers of BAZ factory made a major upgrade of this vehicle, turning it into a virtually new chassis BAZ-135MB equipped with a single diesel engine YaMZ-238 and manual transmission.