Originally intended to be called "Rodina" (Homeland), the name "Pobeda" (Victory) was a back-up, but was preferred by Joseph Stalin.

[4] The GAZ-M20 Pobeda was one of the first Soviet cars of original design and moreover at the front line of a new vogue in automobile design;[5] only the front suspension and, partly, the unitized body were influenced by the 1938 Opel Kapitän and the 1941 Chevrolet Fleetline (the choice of car may have been influenced by the acquisition of the tooling from Opel's Rüsselsheim factory as part of the war reparations package for the Soviet side, which also led to the creation of the Moskvitch 400/420).

[6] The M20 was the first Soviet car using entirely domestic body dies;[4] it was designed against wooden bucks,[4] which suffered warping, requiring last-minute tuning by GAZ factory employees.

[9] After a reorganisation, solving the initial build quality issues, making 346 improvements and adding two thousand new tools, the Pobeda was returned to production.

[10] It had a new carburetor, different final drive ratio (5.125:1 rather than 4.7:1), strengthened rear springs, improved heater, and the ability to run on the low-grade 66 octane fuel typical in the Soviet Union.

[10] In January 1949, the state commission issued a report after testing the new model and its parts, where it noted the significant improvement of build quality, ruggedness and durability of the car, good fuel consumption and on-road performance, especially on poor roads.

[9] The improved Pobeda entered production on 1 November 1949,[10] and the techniques needed to develop and manufacture it effectively created the Soviet automobile industry.

[13] A great number of cars was used by government organizations and government-owned corporations, including taxicab parks (there were no private taxis in the USSR).

[18] The Pobeda provided the first serious opportunity for the Soviet automobile industry to export cars, and "Western drivers found it to be almost indestructible".