Putin getting a new ride

It will be interesting to see what their new one (that's taken 6 years to build) makes Obamas "BEAST" look ugly. In the past, all theirs "resemble" something including Packards at one time. Maybe they aren't as good about stealing secrets as we previously thought? MM
 
Oh my gosh its the green hornets car,that will look nice racing past all the people that want to get a hold of him,he is not a popular man,on either side of the ocean...:myopinion:
 
The BEAST will look good with a set of spinners and some more chrome. I know the Russian taste runs with fine vodka and caviar, but the new one maybe modeled off of a vintage Packard. Just have to wait and see. I wish our car mfg's would go way, way retro and get away from the look that is so indistinguished that they won't even put their name on it, just a logo that no one knows what it means. 40 years ago I could tell cars apart a mile away. You knew a Caddy from a Lincoln and a Buick from a Chevy. You didn't have to look for name badges, sure miss that.:smileflag:
 
Don't they have any industrial or automotive designers in Russia these days? Or can't they hire someone from outside?

Look, I designed a new Zil limousine. I think mine's better than their's. It's certainly no worse.
 

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The black-and-white photo featured in the TELEGRAPH article starting off this thread is actually a ZIL 114 of circa 1966-67 vintage. The shape of the body hasn't changed all that much with subsquent models except where contemporary armoring dictated smaller windows, but the front end became much bolder in ensuing decades by incorporating a higher-profile, Rolls-like radiator in place of the full-width, Imperial-inspired design seen in this photo.

The severely-angular ZIL with vertical headlights that accompanies the GLOBALPOST story also strikes me as a purely-fanciful concept of what they'd like to do next. Scroll down, however, and we all get a BIG BIG payoff in the form of a 5 minute, 42 second www.1tv.ru clip where a woman reporter is getting a complete inside, out and underhood tour of Putin's new 4112P at the ZIL factory with a rear seat test ride thrown in for further sweetening. Though I only understand a few words of Russian, I found this footage absolutely captivating in light of how tightly the U.S. Secret Service controls access to and info about the current generation White House Cadillacs. While the wider-diameter wheels and supposedly American-sourced powertrain (can anyone ID from that TV clip?) were the first things PCS people commented on, the change that really caught my attention from previous ZILs was the change from a Fleetwood 75-style "formal" limo body to a center stretch layout with rear-hinged rear doors like the 1961-69 Lincoln Continentals.

Do I like what I see personally? I actually do, if for no other reason than I think it rather nifty to see ZIL reassert itself as the Supreme Post-Soviet Automaker. Given how many years Putin has been in power, I'm actually quite surprised the Kremlin's switch from S-Class Mercedes-Benzes and Audi A8s didn't take place years ago.
 
Something else nifty I noticed about that new ZIL in that Russian news report, now that I've had a chance to watch it again with less buffering and suffering. The center section incorporates a third pair of doors with hidden handles, creating tremendous, pillarless openings into the rear compartment when they're unlatched. Very slick in the fashion of our favorite three-way hearses!! As there's also a little footage where a window on one rear door is lowered, I'm wondering if the ZIL 4112P in this report is a factory demonstrator versus the heavily-armored car Putin will actually end up with; it's interesting to see that the window surrounds have enough depth by default for thick armored glass, whether or not it's actually fitted to this particular car or not.
 
Here is an article about the new Zil Limo, with a good photo.

This was from last week's "Russia Now", which is a supplement to the Washington Post that appears every couple weeks. Isn't it amazing that the Russian government pays for a whole section in the Washington Post? (China does as well.)
 

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Russia and China pay for full pages in the Washington post,that way they can tell you about ALL the wonderful things they are doing, it never hurts to read what they are doing for as much as they tell us,but we are now in a global economy,hell the north koreans may want to trade in their funeral limo for a ghostbuster car.:rolleyes:
 
I agree that the new Zil limousine looks like the Green Hornet car a bit, but there is one thing that I read in the original article posted that makes me like the new Russian limousine...

"...the Kremlin recently announced that state officials should begin using domestic cars in order to support the Russian auto industry."

I always have and always will believe in local! I would love to see the USSR (I know, it isn't that anymore) use Russian manufactured vehicles for their presidential limousines just like I would love the USA to use only USA made vehicles for our president.

Yes, I like American made Cadillacs and Lincolns, but to see a true Russian limousine is something else! It is great craftsmanship and resource for any country to make their presidential limousines from domestic made cars.
 
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