GAZ-69 is a four-wheel drive light truck, produced by GAZ (ГАЗ, or Gorkovsky Avtomobilnyi Zavod, Gorky Automobile Factory) between 1953 and 1956 and then by UAZ, in 1956–1972, though all of these cars were known as GAZ-69s. Extremely popular in the Soviet Union, it was copied by a number of foreign companies.
The GAZ-69 was created by the team of chief designer Grigoriy Vasserman as a replacement for the GAZ-67B that would have lower fuel consumption than its predecessor and use the same 55 hp (41 kW; 56 PS) 2.1 L (130 cu in) inline four and three-speed transmission as the GAZ-M20 Pobeda. The development process started in 1946 and the first prototypes known under the name "Truzhenik" (Toiler) were built in 1948. After extensive on-road testing, the new off-roader went into production on August 25, 1953. Over 600,000 GAZ-69s had been built by the end of production in the USSR in 1972. A similar vehicle basing upon GAZ-69 design was produced by ARO in Romania until 1975, first as the IMS-57, then as the IMS M59, and later modernized as the ARO M461. GAZ-69 were standard military jeeps of the Eastern Bloc and client states.