The Zil is a large limousine originally built solely for high-ranking Politburo officials in Russia. Although heavily influenced by contemporary American design, the Zil was very much its own car, with a Zil 220 bhp V8 engine - and a pushbutton two-speed automatic gearbox. The current 41041 Zil is built in the same truck factory and Russian leaders still use them: Putin brought two with him when he visited Britain last year. Gorbachev was allowed to keep his Zil after he was ousted from power - until Yeltsin decided he was being too critical of the new regime and took it away, replacing it with three Volgas (much more downmarket). Zil lurches from crisis to crisis but the cars are still, officially, in production.
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