01
Origins
The ZIL-117 of 1971 offered the nomenklatura something unprecedented: a ZIL for the open road — a short-wheelbase five-seat version of the 114 limousine, quicker and almost agile, reputedly favoured by Brezhnev when he wanted the wheel himself, to his security detail's documented despair. The same hand assembly and seven-litre V8 applied to a car with sporting pretensions by armoured-state standards; a two-door version existed in numbers best counted on one hand. The 117's existence documents a human truth inside the apparatus: even general secretaries wanted, occasionally, simply to drive — and the state built them a car for the urge, in secret, to the usual unrepeatable perfection. The security detail's despair, one suspects, was part of the pleasure.
Zil 117 Radon 1 43 scale · Maxzden · CC BY-SA 3.0
