Aurus Senat limo now on sale

The Russian tank that stormed Geneva earlier this year has been only slightly toned down with Aurus pulling the covers off its new Senat limousine.

Looking like a mashup of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi design languages — much like the original Lexus LS400 did — the Aurus Senat will start its global domination exercise by going on sale in Russia now for the equivalent of $US275,000.

That enormous sum is a far cry from the price tags of cars from Russian state-owned companies like Lada, Moskvitch, Gaz and Avtokam, but the Aurus Senat has been built from the ground up to be a super-luxury limousine so oligarchs don’t have to shop at Europe’s traditional brands.

Still, it’s enough to buy three six-cylinder Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousines in Russia, so it’s going to be a big commitment even for the Russian elite.

It made its public debut as Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s chariot for his 2018 inauguration, but surprised people even more by being shown in a prominent position at the Geneva motor show in March.

The 5.6-metre Aurus Senat will be available in both standard and armoured forms and carries a slightly higher ride height than normal to allow it to cope with some of Russia’s more interesting road surfaces. There is also a 6.6-metre stretched version.

The subject of a six-year development program, the Senat uses a 441kW 4.4-litre turbocharged V8 from Russia’s Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Research Institute (which, thankfully, abbreviates to NAMI), and German players Porsche and Bosch.

The Senat is a plug-in hybrid, with a 42kW electric motor inside its nine-speed transmission, and helping the V8 to drive all four wheels.

A 634kW 6.6-litre V12 is planned to slot into the Senat’s engine bay by 2021 -- just in time for the EU7 emissions regulations.

It’s available for export to China and Middle East already, too, and the modular platform will also be shared across a large SUV (dubbed the Komendant) and a people-mover.

They’re not lightweight limousines, with even the entry-level V8 version tipping the scales at 2.7 tonnes, while the armoured version of the long-wheelbase Senat weighs more than six tonnes.

Said to have been developed at the instigation of Putin himself because he was tired of having to buy limousines in Germany, the Aurus brand has a huge showroom in Moscow and plans to open one in China next year and more in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.

There are no plans for sales or distribution in the United States (or Australia).

Aurus is not the first Russian limousine company, with ZiL once noted as the Communist Party’s limo of choice, even to the point where the Russian cities and motorways had exclusive “ZiL lanes”.

ZiL production ended in 2012, with its manufacturing site about to be swallowed up as a suburban redevelopment in Moscow.

But ZiL didn’t make the best Eastern Block limousine of the Cold War, with Czech car-maker Tatra comfortably claiming that title.

The world’s third oldest continually operating car-maker, Tatra built the 603 from 1953 for the Communist elite, powered by a rear-mounted V8.

It was so strong that it not only remained in production until 1975, but most of them were sent back to the factory (as a condition of receiving a new car) to be updated and resold as new models.