At the time, the North American automotive industry was perceived as the global leader in design and innovation, and it inevitable for its Soviet counterpart to look up to it.

Despite Nikita Khrushchev urging his country to "catch-up and overtake America", the Soviet command economy could not afford to match the American convention of altering the car for every model year, nor were its centralised factories physically capable of doing so.

The M24 was to introduce the popular measure economy of scale into the model range, where the same body would house different powertrains, mechanics and interior trim, and hence could me marketed as separate cars (platform sharing).

GAZ hoped to employ this on the new Volga and a range was drawn where the entry model would carry the traditional, though modernised, four cylinder engine and manual transmission (the prototype appeared with a 120 hp (89 kW; 122 PS) 2,990 cc (182 cu in) V6).

A small batch of export cars for countries with left-hand traffic was called GAZ-24-54 (less than a thousand examples built[citation needed]).

In the original design brief the GAZ-24 was to be retired by 1978, and though by that time work on a successor (the GAZ-3102) was underway, it was clear that the car would have to soldier on the conveyor for a foreseeable future.

In 1977, following a 1976 report by NAMI on the Volga's major shortcomings (problematic steering prime among them), GAZ refused to update the GAZ-24's front suspension, instead making only cosmetic changes.

Given that it was possible to openly purchase a new Volga only via Beryozka chain (where it cost almost ten thousand rubles) its resale value would thus be several times higher than the stated nominal price.

Whereas the GAZ-21 became a collectible by the Soviet Union's collapse, the GAZ-24 extended assembly line life meant that only in the late 2000s have prices for low-mileage mint-condition models and restoration interest began to climb.

[15] Their low-key appearance made them sleepers, though Soviet and Russian drivers soon learned to spot the extra radio aerials and dual exhausts.

[18] Small numbers were built with the 140 hp (104 kW; 142 PS) two-rotor 1,300 cc (80 cu in) VAZ-411-01 Wankel engine (which featured a 9.4:1 compression ratio) as the 31028.

The latter's being more economic would have proved a natural relieve the Volga of its traditional taxi role, leaving GAZ's new vehicle as a more exclusive personal luxury car for the mid-range Soviet nomenklatura.

With this in mind, the vehicle's mock-up demonstrated in 1976 was to grow in size, have the V6 powerplant as standard, and a perspective 4.2 litre V8 optional with many other features of the contemporary foreign cars of the 1970s.

)[30] It was powered by a twelve-valve version (ZMZ-402.10) of the venerable 2,445 cc (149 cu in) inline four with electronic ignition, producing 105 hp (78 kW; 106 PS), enough for 94 mph (151 km/h).

[33] However, such car would never see light, as the 1970s unrolled, the stagnation era effects has significantly thwarted any innovation in Soviet Union's planned economy structure.

Moreover, the Minister of Automotive Industry, Viktor Polyakov, had open favouritism for the new VAZ giant, and thus neither AZLK's 3-5 project, nor GAZ's ambitious third-generation Volga would see their respective conveyors.

When the first pre-production vehicles were evaluated by Party garages, the leadership was so impressed with the car, that they barred its mass production as to avoid devaluing its status by its use in taxicabs.

However its simple and robust design and still good quality assembly, and the lack of a domestic light commercial vehicle the GAZ-24-10 was quickly seized by the new generation of commerce.

As a result, the car transformed from a symbol of status into a disposable workhorse, barely meeting the astronomic demand of the emerging market economy.

Though deemed temporary until GAZ's own LCV cars, the GAZelle and Sobol, entered production, the GAZ-31029 Volga occupied a major market niche, and demand for the vehicle remained.

This removed the visual dissonance that the 31029 created, and by incorporating the chassis and powertrain developed for the new Gazelle families (which in turn were designed for the aborted GAZ-3103/04/05 Volgas), combined with a new interior resulted in GAZ-3110 model.

Given the timing, with the 1998 financial crises that followed, which left many foreign equivalents outside the budget Russia's business and public alike, the GAZ-3110 proved a necessity rather than a cheap alternative during the post-crises years.

GAZ-31105 was a second stage of the GAZ-3110's modernisation, though the designation was applied to cars produced from January 2004, the mechanical features were introduced almost a year earlier, and certain external ones were available in separate batches as standard or optional in others.

However the resulting GAZ-3105, which was never to be part of the Volga family, as it would be produced on the Chaika's conveyor (presently still used for the -3102) due to the economic problems never reached production.

The GAZ-3111 was scheduled to launch in 2000, but the factory's new owner Oleg Deripaska was unimpressed with the vehicle visually and once again, the high price of the car prevented any interest to sales.

However, in the summer of 2006, GAZ reversed its earlier decision, announcing that further investments would be made in upgrading the styling and technology of the Volga saloons, keeping them in production as "retro" or "historical" vehicles.

In early 2006, GAZ signed a deal with DaimlerChrysler to acquire the tooling and intellectual property rights for the Chrysler Sebring mid-size car design.

[citation needed] When GAZ acquired the Chrysler Sebring license, it decided to further modify the car, and the Volga Siber was the result.