Free Republic

From where else- Russia While the Russians are quickly running out of money -and still can't make a decent toaster- the sky's the limit for the Kremlin when it comes to military stuff. Somehow tho there never seems to be much budget left for styling- instead, they appear to have let their video-game obsessed kids design the thing (while the dog helped). Yet the ZIL (maker of trucks and Soviet limos) KAT is itself a microcosm of Putin's Russia... overbearing/hyper-macho, in-your-face, brutish, unpolished... not a lot of it makes sense to outsiders, yet they absolutely do not care what you think...

ZiL 114 series Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev had commented earlier this year that he'd be more than happy to trade in his Mercedes official car for a real Russian ride, if an appropriately upscale limo could be sourced from within the country. Not willing to wait for such a new car to utilize in Putin's revivalist Red Square military processions, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov can already be found saluting chins-in-the-air Russian troops from the back a fully-restored cca 1975 ZiL open parade car.While only economy types are produced in Russia (Lada) these days, the USSR had indeed built various tiers of (mediocre)...