The S-60 Stalinets tracked vehicles were produced at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant from 1933 to 1937. During the Great Patriotic War, tractors, including this exhibit, were used in the Red Army as artillery tractors. During the crossing of the Oskol River, two tractors produced by the plant were hit by German bombers and drowned.

70 years after the war, a unique operation to retrieve the tractors from the bottom of the river was successfully carried out. They were transferred to the Prokhorovka Field Museum-Reserve. The tractors were in a very poor condition: their cooling radiators were torn off, and engines, tracks, running gear and other parts were damaged.

Until October 2017, the vehicles were stored in the open area of the museum. It was then that the decision was made to restore at least one Stalinets tractor for the exhibition of the museum “Battle for the Weapons of the Great Victory” that was still under construction.

Restoration work was very difficult because of the severe corrosion damage to all components and assemblies of the tractor. Due to the lack of original parts, it was decided to use the other, more damaged vehicle for spare parts. During the restoration process, the employees of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant provided great assistance. They sent all the necessary technical documents to the museum-reserve.

The original design drawings of the first caterpillar tractor produced at the plant have not been preserved, but the 1936 book “CTP [Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant] Tractor Stalinets-60: Design, Management, Care” was kept in the plant’s museum. Copies of the most informative pages of this rare edition with the necessary diagrams, drawings and descriptions were sent to the Prokhorovka Field Museum-Reserve.

This model was the first tractor of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, as well as the first domestic mass-produced caterpillar tractor. In the 1930s, the problem of mechanization of agriculture in the USSR became very acute. By that time, several types of tractors were already being produced in the country, but their number could not meet the needs of the industry.

In 1930, Kazimir Petrovich Lovin and 40 Soviet engineers went on a work trip to Detroit, USA, where, together with American specialists of the Caterpillar company, they discussed the design of the Chelyabinsk Plant production line. Already at the beginning of 1931, the first tractor S-60 left the gates of the plant.

While the main plant was under construction, an experimental batch of tractors was being tested, and minor changes were added to the design. On June 1, 1933, the mass production of the Soviet caterpillar tractor officially started.