What Was The Car That Vladimir Putin Gave To Kim Jong-Un?

I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but at this moment Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting North Korea, where he’s being feted and welcomed with banners and uncomfortably well-organized celebratory displays. North Korea’s evil-cherub-looking leader, Kim Jong-un, is of course there to pal around with the ghoulish Putin, and, more relevant to our interests, the pair have been seen driving around in a gift Putin brought for Jong-un, a sleek black limousine that looks a bit like the result of a drunken sex-conference between a Chrysler 300 and a Bentley Flying Spur. So what exactly is this car? What should we know about it?

The car is an Aurus Senat and it represents Russia’s most ambitious luxury car, at least since the days of the old Zil or Chaika limousines. The Senat started production in 2021 and was developed by Russia’s Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute, known by their Russian acronym, NAMI. The car is part of the Aurus Kortezh line of official, motorcade-type vehicles, and is built on a “Common Modular Platform” that underpins all the Aurus variants, from sedans to stretched limos.

The Senat is powered by a 4.4-liter V8 with twin turbos making 598 horsepower and 649 pound-feet of torque; the engine was allegedly co-designed and built by Porsche and Bosch. There are hybrid options, too, if you’re sick of blowing all your rubles at the pump. That engine is bolted to a nine-speed automatic gearbox and drives all four wheels.

Design-wise, the Senat feels quite derivative, with the profile resembling the Mercedes-Benz S600 Pullman Guard that the Senat replaced as the Russian state limousine, and the rear sort of feels like a Bentley Flying spur with the way the rear fenders kind of bulge out and the general shape of the taillights, while the headlights and front end feel like dead ringers for the Chrysler 300.

Seriously, look:

The Senat is plenty opulent, as you’d expect from a car like this; in fact the website notes that

“All sounds of the multimedia system were recorded in a professional studio using live string and wind instruments”

… so when you tap an icon on a Senat’s infotainment screen, you’re not going to be subjected to some feedback beep from a Casio keyboard recorded in some bathroom; you’ll get genuine bassoon or maybe cello sounds!

Okay, let’s get back to these two wacky goofballs just yukking it up in this fancy-ass car:

Here’s what I don’t get: Putin already gave Kim Jong-un an Aurus Senat back in February; so why they hell is he giving him another one just, what, four months later? Is that first one already relegated to being a parts car? Did Kim Jong-un flip it while trying to parallel park on one of the weirdly empty streets of Pyongyang?

Why didn’t Putin give him one of the other Aurus models, like the Komendant, which feels like what Aurus built after seeing a Rolls-Royce Cullinan drive by:

If he had given him one of those, then Kim Jong-un would at least have had the whole set, and not just some dupe of the one he had before. I guess he can use one of those Senats for trading with other heads of state who collect Russian luxury cars.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the new car was gifted because some of the listening devices and spy cameras and other espionage crap the car is likely saturated with failed. I mean, I don’t know that, but come on, who are we kidding here? These two callow dictators don’t trust anybody, really.

Anyway, I hope these two bloodthirsty best buddies had a real blast whipping around their fancy cushmobile at speeds approaching 22 mph around that pristine park.

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