The ZIS-5 (Russian: ЗиС-5) was a 4x2 Soviet truck produced by Moscow ZIS factory from October 1933 on. It was an almost identical copy of the American Autocar Dispatch Model SA truck. In 1931 Moscow Avtomobilnoe Moskovskoe Obshchestvo (AMO, Russian Автомобильное Московское Общество (АМО) — Moscow Automotive Enterprise) truck plant was re-equipped and expanded with the help of the American A.J. Brandt Co., and began to produce a new truck with designation of AMO-2. AMO-2 was intended as a replacement of the previous AMO-F15, the first Soviet truck ever built (it was a copy of the Italian Fiat F-15).

Soon AMO-2 was improved, and new models AMO-3 and AMO-4 appeared. In 1933 AMO was rebuilt again and renamed into Factory No. 2 Zavod Imeni Stalina (or Plant of Stalin's Name, abbreviated in ZIS or ZiS) and in Summer first prototypes of the new ZIS-5 appeared.

Serial production of the new truck started on October 1, 1933. The truck was an instant success and, which together with GAZ-AA, became the main Soviet truck of 1930-50's. It also evolved into the workhorse of the Soviet armed forces: at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa the Red Army could line up 104,200 of those trucks.

Facing the German invasion, in the autumn of 1941 the production line at Moscow plant was stopped and ZIS was moved to Ulyanovsk (on the Volga) and to Miass (in theChelyabinsk region of the Urals). Production at Ulyanovsk UASZIS lasted from February 1942 to 1944.

By October 1941, the rapid German drive to Moscow, triggered the decision to relocate the Moscow automotive manufacturer ZIS to the Volga town of Ulyanovsk. The first vehicle produced at the plant was the ZIS-5 three-ton truck.