Russia’s ‘Senate Limousine’: introducing Mr. Putin’s new car

In various articles for RussiaFeed I have discussed Project Kortezh, Russia’s project to create a new range of home produced top end luxury cars under the Aurus brand to compete with Mercedes, Bentley and Rolls-Royce at the top end of the Russian car market.

We got our first sight of one of these cars yesterday, when directly following his inauguration President Putin took a brief ride in his new Aurus limousine around the Kremlin grounds

This vehicle in which Putin was driven yesterday – apparently officially termed the ‘Senate Limousine’ after the building in the Kremlin (the building of tsarist Russia’s Governing Senate) where Putin has his office – is not the final version of this limousine.  That will use the gigantic 850 hp V12 engine which is apparently still on test.  The vehicle in which Putin was driven yesterday apparently uses as a stopgap a normally aspirated version of the smaller 600 hp V8 engine designed for the Aurus SUV and sedan cars (reports suggest that those two cars will use a turbocharged version of this engine).

The appearance of the Senate Limousine nonetheless shows the imposing look of the new Aurus range of cars, which are expected to go on general sale next year.

It seems that Putin was pleased with with his new car, and has made known that henceforth he will only consent to be driven by cars of the Aurus range.