GOP Posts About ‘Making Automobiles Great Again’ And Uses Picture Of Old Soviet Car Behind President

I know we try to avoid overt politics here at the Autopian, but sometimes something so bonkers happens that there’s really no way to not address it. And I think the category of things that qualify as “so bonkers” absolutely must include a major American political party posting a picture of the president on social media with a message about “making automobiles great again” and then choosing an old Soviet-era Lada as the car to show behind him. Because that just happened.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Trump Administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that is outside the scope of our humble car-lovers’ site here, but there is a provision in the bill to effectively remove fines automakers accrue for not meeting fuel economy standards, which proponents of the bill believe will help the American automobile industry.

This point was mentioned in a (seemingly poorly-researched) post from The Daily Signal, which is what the Republican party was referencing in this post they sent out last night on the X social media platform:

The One Big Beautiful bill will drive the return of the great American car.
???????????????? pic.twitter.com/poAsG8pDKg

— GOP (@GOP) July 31, 2025

Just in case the tweet gets taken down, here’s a screenshot of the relevant image:

Okay, fine, Make Automobiles Great Again, and the Big Beautiful Bill will “drive the return of the great American car.” You’d think with that sort of sentiment in mind, they’d have picked some sort of legendary American car to feature behind the president, right? Maybe an old Mustang, or a GTO, or a Toronado or a Jeep or a Charger or even a Corvair or, hell, a Gremlin? Something American and iconic.

But the GOP (or whoever made the graphic) took a very different approach here. The car proudly stationed behind the President, proclaiming a re-birth of great American cars, appears to be a Lada 2101.

The Lada 2101 was built from 1970 to 1988 and was based on the Fiat 124; it was also known as the Lada 1200, Lada 1300, and VAZ 2101. It was, of course, a Soviet/Russian car and about the least American car I can think of, by nearly any standard.

So why pick that car for this image?

I even found where the photo came from: a stock image site called Pixabay, where this particular image is tagged with “Lada, Yellow, Vehicle image. Free for use.”

Since it’s free for use, I may as well show you the original image here, right? It’s free!

Look, you can even see that weird mark on the C-pillar! This is the same car.

This all brings us to the real question: why?

Was someone trolling the GOP? Was this intentional? Is it possible some designer knew nothing about cars and somehow, by chance, just decided to use an old Soviet car in this tweet about making American cars great again?

Again, I’d like to try and avoid any overt political discussion here, but I think we can all agree that this is absolutely ridiculous. I’d be writing the same story if the Democratic Party put a post on Instagram of Joe Biden crowing about great American cars in front of a Zaporozhets or something. This is objectively hilarious.

The Republican party is posting pictures of the President cheering in front of classic Soviet iron. What a weird world we’re in.