This thing? I found it inside an abandoned square-mile Soviet-era military factory in Siberia. It would have worn a gas mask to help illustrate to workers proper safety protocols upon nuclear war with America. Now, it's just another artifact of the USSR's once mighty military machine.

In Soviet-era Russia, families needing transportation lined up at the car office, filled out their paperwork and waited up to six years for their wheels to arrive. Many chose to instead spend those years building their own cars, from iron-clad sports cars to pods with a frying pan for a steering wheel. Here's some of…

What the Soviets lacked in ability for effective governance, they made up for in ballsy engineering prowess. Really, who else would think to pack two nuclear reactors into a ship and set it loose in the Arctic breaking ice? The North Koreans? Psshhh, not likely.

We'd all love an obsessively detailed 1:18 scale Volvo 240 coupe on our desks, of course, but no collection of automotive tchotchkes is complete without some Soviet iron!

Saturday morning, the competitors of the Mutually Assured Destruction of Omaha 24 Hours of LeMons race had just entered the track for transponder testing laps when this hunk of vintage Soviet iron came screaming by at low altitude.

Once again, English Russia comes through with a great car photo.

Powered by 228,800 Lb-Ft of thrust, this Lun-class Ekranoplan was designed to carry two-million pounds of Europe-invading soldiers and vehicles and six nuclear missiles at speeds up to 340 MPH. Thank God Reagan defeated the Soviet Union.

This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we admire interesting street-parked cars in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. We've already seen a WW2 vet on the Copenhagen street, and now it's the Cold War's turn.

Let's say you could go back to the early 1950s and snag a super-futuristic prototype automobile as your 2009 daily driver. Which side of the Iron Curtain would you choose?

The Lamest Day takes place at Nelson Ledges next weekend, and it will feature the best all-time Index Of Effluency matchup in 24 Hours Of LeMons history: a Soviet car taking on a finned Caddy!