This book is about people who are little known to the general public (although among specialists their names sometimes speak volumes). About those who test and bring to fruition automotive equipment. And “commander” in the slang of testers is usually called the head of on-site tests (popularly called automobile rallies) conducted in different regions of the country, and even beyond its borders. As a rule, he is the leading engineer of a particular project. The author - the leading tester of experimental models of the Gorky and Volzhsky automobile plants - had the opportunity to spend more than three decades in the difficult shoes of a commander and, I think, his observations may be of some interest. True, memoirs are now being written All. Often, alas, they come down to a banal biography - “born”, “married” and so on. Considering such an approach absolutely unacceptable for himself, the author tried to the best of his ability to build a series of events from the actions and processes in which he happened to participate. In addition, to all this, again, did not in any way resemble an autobiography, the events are presented in the form of separate episodes. The text also includes fragments from the book “The Flame of High Thought,” of which the author happened to be the editor-compiler. The book is abundantly illustrated with photographs from the author’s personal archive. According to the principle " It’s better to see once...” What came out of all this is for the readers to judge.