Old-fashioned production techniques and low scale resulted in mediocre build quality and high retail price – several times that of a locally assembled Ford Model A.

However, another automotive manufacturing project of late 1920s & early 30s – the GAZ plant, built with the assistance of Ford Motor Company – proved to be a success, with a designed capacity to produce up to 250...300 thousand cars and trucks annually.

The situation had changed considerably by the end of 1930s, when USSR's rapidly growing industrial economy provided both the demand for a personally used small car and the means to produce it.

As well as improving the quality of life for the citizens affected, it was assumed that people who had learned to drive in peacetime would, in the event of armed conflict, constituted a cadre of trained drivers for the Red army.

2, which had started assembling Ford cars and trucks from CKD kits earlier that year, was named after the Young Communist International organization (Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional Molodyozhi – KIM).

The Prefect's chassis and powertrain were reverse engineered, the resulting drawings converted into the metric system and adopted to the Soviet materials and production techniques.

Valentin Brodskiy, a GAZ designer later to become famous for his work on the M-20 Pobeda, developed an original body for this chassis, with the frontal styling reminiscent of the flagship model of the Soviet automotive industry, the ZIS-101A.

A. Likhachyov personally, had made several unauthorized alterations to the specifications which significantly worsened the car's technical and economic qualities, including the increase of length and height, two doors instead of four and chromed moldings on the body sides.

The Sovnarkom demanded these alterations to be reversed before the start of mass production, and also requested several other changes, including increase of the road clearance to at least 185 mm, removal of the running boards, replacement of the free-standing headlights with recessed units and substitution of the metal roof panel with an artificial leather insert.

In August and October 1940 the NATI (former NAMI) developed a very modern-looking streamlined four-door body for the KIM chassis (retrospectively named NATI-KIM), which to some degree resembled the German Auto-Union's prototype DKW F9.

The production was assisted by ZIS (supplied frames, leaf springs, large forgings), GAZ (stampings and castings), Moscow “Ball Bearing” plant, “Red Etna” factory in Gorky and up to 90 other industrial facilities.

Its cooling system lacked a water pump, relying on thermocirculation instead, and a thermostat, the latter being quite impractical during cold Russian winters because the engine took a lot of time to warm up.