Vladimir Putin is getting ready to take delivery of a brand new limousine, named Kortezh (Cortege).
The Cortege project, which was allocated 3.7 billion rubles ($54 million) this year, will provide Russian-made vehicles for transportation of top local government officials, as MoscowTimes reports, quoting RIANovosti.
It will be offered in four different body styles, limo, sedan, SUV and minivan and unlike President Obama’s Cadillac, nicknamed the ‘Beast’, it will be available to all Russians who can afford it, as the manufacturer plans to produce 4,000-5,000 units of each version.
Production will kick off in 2017, at the Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute (NAMI) in Moscow, and in the first year, 200 examples will be built, while the rest will roll off by the end of the decade.
Porsche was in charge of helping developing the Kortezh’s powertrain, as Commerce and Industry Minister, Denis Manturov, confirmed, according to SputnikNews, but the exact engine found under the hood of the car remains a mystery. Nevertheless, we may be looking at a V12 turbo with approximately 800 HP, as a previous report writes.
Deliveries of the first lot of Kortezh cars will commence “around the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2018“, as Manturov said, and President Putin is expected to receive a model from the initial batch.
H/T to Autoblog
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