While President Obama rides in a General Motors Frankenstein with a Cadillac face, Vladimir Putin still has to rely on the Mercedes S-Class to get around. The latest reports coming in over from Russia show that the situation is about to change. Dramatically.
What you see here is Putin’s next Presidential Limousine and we’ll start by telling you this isn’t you ZIL from the good old communist day. Putin’s ambitious project has already been in development for a few years now and it should come to life sometime in 2016.
A development like this requires rock solid engineering and the Russians have sought just the right people. It seems that Porsche had a hand in the tech work. Of course, the design is of paramount importance and Putin has reportedly rejected the early designs which resembled the rectangular styling of the past.
As it turns out, even Marussia has brought some styling contribution to this. The Russian carmaker is now defunct, but the officials have made sure that does not affect the development.
Judging by the looks of the scale model in the adjacent model, they seem to have come up with a better design, even though there’s more than a hint of Chrysler for the front fascia. As for the interior, we notice massive Russian blazons, mixed with window and seat controls resembling Mercedes units.
OK, maybe we’re being a bit too harsh on the vehicle, so we’ll cut it some slack for now. Speaking of timing, the prototype road testing is slated to debut later in the current year.
In fact, the project is more complex, as the Russian Government aims for a full line-up to be launched. Dubbed Project Cortege, this job is believed to have required serious funding, somewhere between $150 and $400 million. We’re not expecting the vehicle to be spied anytime soon...
Via: Yahoo Autos
A development like this requires rock solid engineering and the Russians have sought just the right people. It seems that Porsche had a hand in the tech work. Of course, the design is of paramount importance and Putin has reportedly rejected the early designs which resembled the rectangular styling of the past.
As it turns out, even Marussia has brought some styling contribution to this. The Russian carmaker is now defunct, but the officials have made sure that does not affect the development.
Judging by the looks of the scale model in the adjacent model, they seem to have come up with a better design, even though there’s more than a hint of Chrysler for the front fascia. As for the interior, we notice massive Russian blazons, mixed with window and seat controls resembling Mercedes units.
OK, maybe we’re being a bit too harsh on the vehicle, so we’ll cut it some slack for now. Speaking of timing, the prototype road testing is slated to debut later in the current year.
In fact, the project is more complex, as the Russian Government aims for a full line-up to be launched. Dubbed Project Cortege, this job is believed to have required serious funding, somewhere between $150 and $400 million. We’re not expecting the vehicle to be spied anytime soon...
Via: Yahoo Autos