Apparently this has been out there for a while, but before we discussed the news that Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, manufacturers of the Volga line of hulking vehicular tragicomic props, was looking for partners on the Indian subcontinent, we needed to find press releases with the right sort of Moose-Und-Sqvirrel feel.
The actual hard news, of course, is that GAZ is most likely trying for a piece of the commercial vehicle market in auto-ascendant India, where Tata recently made headlines by unveiling the $2500 Nano and buying a couple venerable British marques off Ford. Unfortunately, it's unclear exactly which Indian firm would partner with Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, as while their name may be fun to say, they'd be up against current native truckmaker Mahindra, among others. What we can tell you as an absolute press-release certainty, though, is that
"success of cars launched by all global players in India is driving force behind Russia to think over entering Indian auto market."
Or, as one GAZ senior official evidently said,
"As auto is one of the key areas of the India-Russia Forum on Trade and Investment we are looking at business partnership in future."
Industry implications aside, it's lots of fun to imagine Russian heavy vehicles operating in the nation with the world's largest population of stray cows. Probably even more fun than coming up with silly "In Soviet Russia..." jokes.