From what we know in the limited drawings and photos at the end of the gallery above, the original K7 only had six BMW engines but they decided to switch to Soviet-built engines (that's thinking ahead!) so they added a seventh engine because Soviet engines sucked. Approximately 25 passengers and crew set themselves up inside the huge wing or hung out inside the train car-sized landing gear.

Enjoy the renderings above as they get a little crazy...

[CTRL-C via Hooniverse, English Russia]

(Hat tip to everyone for the tips!) Photo credit English Russia. (where else?)

The 131 is not a fancy truck by any means. It’s a basic 6×6 cargo unit with endless possible configurations, including a trailer for surface-to-air missiles. It is powered by a 6-liter gasoline V8, which—like every Russian military engine worth its salt—can run on pretty much anything that features carbon atoms bound to hydrogen atoms with a fancy for oxygen.

The beauty of the 131 lies in the laconic manner it handles obstructions. Aided by a ground clearance of over a foot and a maximum fording depth of 4'7", it takes to bad terrain like an SR–71 to an extra continent to cross.

Observe for yourself in this rare example of a video showcasing a military vehicle without power metal cranked to 11:

Just make sure you’ve got your logistics nailed down: all that off-roading comes at the price of a very Russian fuel economy in the range of 1–2 MPG.

Photo Credit: PzBrig15/Militaryphotos.net, Samuli Ikäheimo/Flickr

Let me tell you, this epic battle is gonna make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a kiddie squabble at the day-care center! Will Soviet-made Fiat technology triumph over 4,500 pounds of very rusty Detroit iron? Let's take a look at the combatants:

Otherwise known as the VAZ-2107, the Fiat 124-based Lada Signet was available in Canada right up through the end of the Cold War, so our own Comrade Teargaskov went up to Canada and brought back a running $200 example. This team isn't messing around; they've got a PA system in the car to crank the Hymn Of The Soviet People on the track, no doubt intimidating the other racers with the indomitable spirit of the revolutionary cadres, in addition to all the requisite red flags, hammer-and-sickle emblems, and the coolest 1921-in-Leningrad-style car numbers we've ever seen. Here's a little video that shows how seriously Total Loss Racing is taking this thing. The Lada is a simple, sturdy rear-wheel-drive machine and might rack up a lot of laps over the course of the weekend. Oh, did I mention that this race is a true 24-straight-hours event, with no overnight break to fix busted cars?

Now, when we heard that a Lada would be racing, we figured that nothing on earth could possibly challenge a Soviet car for the Index Of Effluency. Then Team Police Brutality (whose Lincoln Continental Mark VIII was one of the fastest cars at LeMons South) picked up a terrifyingly wretched '61 Cadillac sedan about two weeks ago… and figured that they had plenty of time to get it ready to race. No, really! Crazy as it sounds, they've got it most of the way there; the roll cage is installed, the engine runs, and the brakes are, uh, awaiting completion. The reason for all the urgency is that Team Police Brutality is racing to raise money to beat up breast cancer, LAPD style, and they're getting backers to pledge a buck per lap completed during the race to Susan G. Komen For The Cure. Want to join those backers? Go here and sign up! The question is, how many laps can a drum-brake-equipped rustmobile that hasn't budged for decades complete? More than the Lada? We'll find out next weekend!

Naturally, we need to make a contest out of this battle, with fabulous prizes from LeMons HQ for the winner. To enter, just put the number of laps you think each car will finish in a comment below. The course is about two miles long and the race will go a full 24 hours, so the faster cars that run the whole time might get 600+ laps. These two cars aren't going to be so fast, and they will almost certainly might fall apart experience some technical difficulties on the track… but you never know! Win the contest and LeMons HQ will send you some shirts that they can't get anyone to buy at the races cool 24 Hours Of LeMons swag!



Total Loss Racing's 1987 Lada Signet


Team Police Brutality - Beating Up Breast Cancer's 1961 Cadillac Series 62

[EnglishRussia]

The accident happened during an event for wealthy organized criminals bad drivers supercar enthusiasts in Moscow on what appears to be a closed road. Wait, are we suggesting that political favors can are exchanged for rubbles dollars in Russia? No, not us Mr. Putin. Sir.

Launched in 1991 to celebrate the 110th anniversary of Ettore Bugatti's birth, the EB110 is a mid-engined supercar powered by a quad-turbo, triple-differential 3.5-liter V12 with 542 HP and AWD. Back then, in the age of lightweight cars (the EB110 weighed 3,560 Lbs), that was enough for a 0-62 time of 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 213 MPH. Somehow, we don't think this one will ever see those kinds of speeds ever again. [via Fishki.net]

Thanks for the tip, Alex!

The local Russian cops in the city of Omsk have begun placing cardboard cutouts of Brad Pitt dressed up as a traffic cop on streets in order to help slow motorists in the most dangerous intersection of the city and, surprisingly, it seems to be working. Omsk officials are stating that accident rates are way down, likely due to motorists slowing down to gaze at the Hollywood hunk.

In the local newspaper, Dmitry Ziryanov, the Omsk official that came up with the ingenious idea, says that Pitt is somewhat of a "colleague for us." We think we'd be able to achieve the same results if we had Megan Fox cutouts throughout our city. [via yahoonews]

Apparently buying a flat in Russia isn't quite the same experience as it is in the land of apple pie and baseball, according to English Russia you get a concrete box and not much more. Russians apparently prefer it this way as they can build up their home however they see fit, kitting out walls and fixtures and everything else in their own personal tastes. Problem is, occasionally when a new high rise gets finished, the permits for elevator installation and operation are tied up in red tape, as in this case.

Instead of standing around waiting, these enterprising Ruskies took the wheel off their car and installed a reel in its place, which has been purposed with powering a home-style external freight elevator. That right there is terrifying genius. We were just thinking, a "Russian Elevator" sounds like either a particularly intoxicating vodka-based beverage or a terrifying way to die at the hands of the KGB. [English Russia]

The Ferrari 612 Scaglietti normally would run you $320k, but in Russian it ran its new owner almost $850k, making this Italian campfire even more gut wrenching.

From the owner of the recently departed Ferrari;

I owned Ferrari for 30 minutes. Just bought it for 600,000 EUR and was heading home, when I noticed some smoke coming out from under the hood, I promptly pulled to the sideway and ran out of the car. Just in minutes all my new Ferrari was caught on fire. I really don't know what has happened.

Seems like Ferrari has been building in some of the old reliability problems back into its modern cars. We love the Italians for that. [via englishrussia]

Thermobaric weapons excite me. Some of it is the name—also written as fuel-air bomb or vacuum bomb—but mostly it’s the sheer elegance of operation. They work by dispersing their fuel in a cloud of fine particulate, then lighting the cloud on fire. The resulting explosion creates a particularly devastating shockwave while sucking up all the oxygen in the area.

Among the many vacuum bombs in use by various armies is the Russian RPO-A Shmel, where shmel means bumblebee. It is a single-shot bazooka which fires a 4.6-pound thermobaric warhead. You can see it in action here.

Scary, yes. But what if you took the same principle and upped it a bit? By, say, using 220 mm fuel-air rockets and mounting 30 of them on a T-72 tank chassis? You would end up with the TOS-1 Buratino.

Buratino is a Russian derivative of Pinocchio and you can certainly see why it’s a very appropriate nickname for the TOS-1, which has somehow escaped our list of the ten fiercest Russian military vehicles of all time. It is capable of firing its entire load of 30 warheads over 15 seconds, levelling 40 unfortunate acres in the process. The TOS-1 was put to crushing use against the Chechen capital of Grozny during its siege in December 1999. This is what remained of the city:

Which, come to think of it, is what my home would look like if the people of Hungary had delayed their 1956 revolution by a few decades, until the Buratino was developed in the late 80’s.

Photo Credit: Militaryimages.net, Vyacheslav Fedorov, Freechechnya.org

The car is as much a publicity stunt as anything else, with Russia's de facto leader posing in the car in order to encourage buyers in Russia's down automobile market. That doesn't cloud the sheer awesomeness of this Niva though. It's outfitted with an array of available options including a grille guard, winch, roof rack, a snorkel and... what's this? Gasp! American-made BF Goodrich All-Terrain T/A tires? The greedy hand of the capitalist pigs reaches very far. Anyway, the car was trotted out for the press where the Prime Minister of Russia extolled the virtues of the brutish little car and invited some of the press to take it for a drive. Wonder if he'd let us take it for a spin? (Thanks for the tip Michael)

[USAToday]

You can't contemplate Soviet machinery without the Red Army Choir performing The Hymn Of The Soviet Union, so crank up the volume! The air-cooled MEMZ 45° V4 was the powerplant used in the beloved Zaporozhets, a true proletariatmobile built from 1958 through 1994. The MEMZ-968 was the largest and most powerful of the Zaporozhets engines, displacing 1.2 liters and generating 42 horsepower, and it was used from 1972 all the way to the end of the vehicle's run in 1994. It was simple and easy to maintain, very well suited to the climatic extremes of the Soviet Union, and definitely qualifies for workhorse status.
[Wikipedia, MEMZ official history]

The fire happened way back in 2007 in Kostroma, Russia, when a group of devout religious types took offense to the "666" mark of the beast license plate and set it on fire. We enjoyed the story when it first came out, and still think it's pretty amusing, though we're sad to see a Viper get it over something so silly. Perhaps Daily Mail should read Jalopnik more often. [Daily Mail]

In addition to possibly setting a record for the longest single-make wedding procession, we have to credit the organizers for also setting the record for the easiest "In Russia..." setup. Gentleopnkis, start your joke engines.

[Auto.Lenta.Ru via English Russia]

Apparently the first car, a TechArt-tuned Cayenne full of businessmen on their way to lunch shared the license plate digits 177 with the violent criminals. We're guessing those flash bangs did a lot of damage to the pricey Porsche. [via GTSPIRIT]

In addition to the shots of junkyard-loving ladies posing with these relics of the Soviet era, we get an added bonus: what appears to be a Moskvich veteran of the 1970 London To Mexico City World Cup Rally (or some Russian car freak's replica). These shots were on EnglishRussia a few years back, but this sort of thing never goes stale.
[netwind.ru]