Tandem truck

The President wants to drive a domestic car. It could cost the government $1 billion.

In the personal fleets of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and presidential envoy to the Southern District Vladimir Ustinov, there are Soviet ZIL limousines - this follows from the income declarations of officials for 2009. The Russian leadership is characterized by a love for the Soviet retro: Dmitry Medvedev has a Pobeda, Vladimir Putin has an old Volga. But now the cars of Shuvalov and Ustinov can return to civil service from car museums. Dmitry Medvedev ordered to study the possibility of purchasing new ZIL vehicles for the presidential fleet.

Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Presidential Administration, spoke about plans to create a domestic limousine last week on the air of the Ekho Moskvy radio station. He stressed that we are talking about new modern cars, although based on ZIL. In fact, Putin already ordered to revive the stalled production of ZIL cars - in 2003, when he himself was president, but then the matter did not end with anything.

Now President Medvedev has given a new order. A working group will be created to study the economic feasibility of creating a machine of this level. “The car for the first persons is a kind of bar. This is the crown of the domestic auto industry. The question is whether this bar should be set,” Viktor Khrekov, spokesman for the Presidential Administration, explained. Simply put, it's all about prestige - the president of a great power has to ride in a domestic limousine.

Now the "memberships" that carried the general secretaries and members of the Politburo are mostly in the garages of collectors and in museums of rare cars. There are seven cars from the 80s in the presidential administration garage, but they are rented and rarely carry VIPs. Only recently, for the parade in honor of the 65th anniversary of the Victory, ZIL, after a long break, produced three open limousines. But such cars are used extremely rarely, and the load on the presidential car is incomparably higher.

“If the head of state decides to revive such a limousine, then comprehensive support will be provided, including financial support,” Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the prime minister, assures. One can only guess how much the patriotic idea will cost. VTB analyst Elena Sakhnova is sure that if you develop a new model from scratch, you will have to pay 30 billion rubles for the entire process - from the first drawings to leaving the garage. From the last attempt at resuscitation - in 2003 - there were sketches of drawings for the new ZIL-4112 limousine, but the main part of the work is still ahead.

Cars for presidents are so expensive, in large part because of the high requirements for safety. ZIL representatives assure that their car is superior to its competitors in this. In the Kremlin garage, 30 years ago, they promised a box of cognac to anyone who could turn the ZIL on the go, and so far no one has succeeded, says Viktor Novochenko, marketing director of the automobile plant.

But the Mercedes-600 Pullman, in which Putin and Medvedev mainly travel, has many other advantages. In any case, they meet the standards of the Federal Security Service: armored body and windows that can withstand a hand grenade explosion and a burst from a machine gun, protection against chemical attack and an automatic fire extinguishing system. Punctured tires cannot stop such a car - it is able to maintain a speed of at least 150 km per hour.

Mercedes and BMW spend a lot of money on the development and improvement of their models, says Oleg Datskiv, CEO of the Auto-Dealer.ru portal. Unlike ZIL, which worked only for government orders, this is good business for foreign companies, because they provide armored vehicles not only to top officials of the state, but also to large businessmen, including in Russia. It is hard to imagine that Russian billionaires would trust their security to a domestic manufacturer. So if the decision to revive the new ZILs is made, just like in Soviet times, a very small batch will be made - most likely, a few pieces for the president and prime minister. Perhaps it will cost less than 30 billion rubles, but it will be difficult to ensure the desired quality.

A government official already doubts that Putin will agree to regularly ride in a Russian limousine with Soviet ancestry: “Mongolia cannot build an airplane. And we cannot build a car for top officials that is competitive in terms of speed and safety parameters. This is a fact, and we have to come to terms with it.”

In addition, it is difficult to imagine a less suitable place for a technical breakthrough than ZIL. At the height of the crisis, the government included it in the old memory in the list of backbone enterprises, along with AvtoVAZ and GAZ, but did not provide financial support. The plant turned into a ghost back in pre-crisis times, there is nothing special to save there. “About the third year we were told: look for a job, the plant is bankrupt,” recalls Ilya Kalashnikov, who graduated in 2005 from the Moscow Automobile Building Institute - a former technical school at ZIL. Ilya, an engine designer by profession, now sells spare parts for Renault.

In recent years, ZIL has been producing trucks, garbage trucks and snowplows for Moscow, fire engines for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Last year, sales went very badly: 2,239 cars rolled off the assembly line - half as many as in 2008. In fact, the plant could, with a clear conscience, not build these machines either. The auto industry for ZIL is no longer a core business. For the three quarters of 2009, the company earned 1.8 billion rubles, of which 1.4 billion rubles - income from the lease of huge areas, which are still at his disposal. ZIL has also mastered new activities: for example, it makes church bells, cast-iron benches, drain grates, and even monuments. The auto industry brings him only losses.

It is not a fact that it is ZIL that will hit the big jackpot in the form of a state order. We are talking about the brand, and not about the plant, they specify in the presidential administration, negotiations are underway with various companies. But the choice is small. There is GAZ, which in Soviet times also produced a government car, albeit a lower class - "The Seagull". But he did not succeed in successfully bringing a new passenger car to the market for a long time. For example, the Volga Cyber ​​model based on the American car Chrysler Sebring could not become popular. The company itself refused to talk about the new presidential limousines.

One thing is clear - like all new projects in the Russian automotive industry, the limousine will be Russian only partially. “We will find domestic armor, but where can we get the engine?” - Novochenko asks a question from ZIL. To put import means to remain dependent on a foreign partner. The army jeep "Tiger", which is called the domestic "Hammer", is now entering the Russian army. He also took part in the May 9 parade, but a couple of years ago was on the verge of being phased out. GAZ, a jeep manufacturer, purchased engines from the American company Cummins. One fine day, the partners almost canceled the contract when it turned out that the American company could not supply equipment to non-NATO countries.

Electronics for the "crown of the domestic auto industry" will also probably have to be bought abroad . The external form can be anything, but the filling will still be foreign - from the same Mercedes, analyst Datskiv is sure. A lot of money will be spent, but it is hardly worth waiting for a technological breakthrough in the automotive industry.