| Pavlovo Bus Factory | |
| Native Name Lang: | ru |
| Type: | Public company |
| Industry: | Automotive, ISIC: 2910 |
| Predecessors: | --> |
| Successors: | --> |
| Founders: | --> |
| Hq Location City: | Pavlovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast |
| Hq Location Country: | Russia |
| Areas Served: | --> |
| Key People: | Andrei Vladimirovich Vasiliev |
| Products: | Buses |
| Owners: | --> |
| Parent: | GAZ Group Bus Division |
| Slogans: | --> |
Pavlovo Bus Factory (Russian: Павловский автобус, formerly Russian: Па́вловский авто́бусный заво́д, Pavlovsky Avtobusny Zavod or PAZ) is a manufacturer of buses in Russia, in the city ofPavlovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. PAZ is a subsidiary of Russian Buses which is a division of GAZ.
Pavlovo Bus Factory specializes in designing and manufacturing buses of the small/medium class (length 9.7 m). Buses are the most common plant in Russia, their annual output is over 10,000 units, almost 80% of small buses in Russia. The small PAZ buses have long been used by Russian "fixed-route taxi" (marshrutka) operators.
Starting in 2015, the GAZ Group introduced a single brand for all its bus manufacturing subsidiaries, and newly manufactured vehicles now feature the deer badge of the GAZ company.[1]
The factory has its origins in the ZATI automobile and tractor tool plant, established in Pavlovo in 1932.[2] The building of the factory started in 1952, and in the same year the first PAZ-651 long-hood buses (based on the GAZ-51 general-purpose lorry) were produced. The government had a plan to produce 10,000 buses per year. In 1960, the production of new PAZ-652 forward control model on the same chassis started. It was replaced by the outwardly similar PAZ-672 (based on the GAZ-53 lorry) in early 1968, and this bus had a large family of various modifications. 1989 saw a start of production of the new PAZ-3205 model having basically the same chassis but a completely new body.