The Minsk tractor factory was established in 1946 to produce crawler tractors, and the wheeled tractors MTZ-1 and MTZ-2, based on their technology, were introduced in 1953. The successor to the MTZ-2 was the 45-horsepower MTZ-5, which began production in 1956. Features of the MTZ-5 included a power take-off independent of the driving clutch and a hydraulic lifting device equipped with external cylinders. It had 8+2 gears. The basic model was started using a gasoline engine, while the M model had an electric starter.

In the 1960 MS model, the number of gears was increased to 10+2, and the road speed rose to 22.42 km/h. Engine power increased when the RPM was raised from 1500 to 1600.

A rare parallel model of the MTZ-5 was the four-wheel-drive MTZ-7, whose front axle was taken from the GAZ-63 truck. Demand for the MTZ-5 in socialist countries was sufficient to satisfy the factory’s capacity, and they were hardly exported to Western countries. Since 1958, it was also produced in Ukraine at the JuMZ factory, from 1957 in Romania (Utos-45), and later also in China. Production at the Belarus factory ended in 1963, but production continued for significantly longer in several other countries.

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