With car sales down by almost 60% this year in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is making a big push to encourage citizens to buy locally produced automobiles, such as various models of the Lada brand.  To help push the message, Putin personally drove up to his meeting last Friday with inimitable Silvio Berlusconi to sign the South Stream deal in an impressively decked out Lada Niva.

The boys over at the car-obsessive blog Jalopnik are in love with Putin’s ride, even if the staging forgot to hide the American made tires: