[3] It may have used the designation Aircraft Repair Factory (aviazavod, ARZ) 117 during the Soviet period.

[citation needed] The Klimov OKB was formed in the early 1930s to produce and improve upon the liquid-cooled Hispano-Suiza 12Y V-12 piston engine for which the USSR had acquired a license.

In 1946 the British government allowed Rolls-Royce to sell a number of Nene and Derwent V turbojet engines to the Soviet Union.

Klimov OKB was given the task of "metrifying" the British designs, without the knowledge or permission of the West, as the VK-1 and RD-500.

It used the nationalised buildings originally erected by 1914 in the city's present-day Vyborgsky District for the joint stock Russian Renault automotive works,[4][5] adding new workshop and administrative premises on the land in Bolshoy Sampsoniyevskiy Prospect avenue near the present Kantemirovskaya Street.