From Russia With Love, a Limo With Storied Past

For some, getting noticed is what being in L.A. is all about, and what better way to get noticed than by driving an unusual car?

Boy, have we got one for you.

Porsches? Passe. Hot rods? Ho-hum. Convertibles? So conventional.

We’re talking 1982 Zil-115 limousine. And not just any limo but the Presidential Transporter that was maintained by the KGB in Moscow for the personal use of Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov from 1982 through 1984. (It was used by other politicians and bureaucrats from ’84 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and then was sold to a private party.)

You can bet your babushka that this hunk of polished black metal will get you noticed anywhere you go in Southern California. Just submit the top bid.

The Zil is being offered in an online auction, through March 25, by Bidz.com, at www.bidz.com, one of the myriad Internet auction houses always trying to get people to notice them.

Igor Krakovsky, the company’s business development director, says the limo--recently bought by Bidz--is valued at $350,000 but will be sold to the highest bidder with no minimum. If the top bid is $2, so be it, he says.

The auction is being used to help generate publicity for Los Angeles-based Bidz, which was launched in 1999. It certainly caught our attention.

For the record, the six-passenger Zil boasts a 7.6-liter V-8 engine rated at 315 horsepower and gets about 10 miles per gallon. But, no, we don’t know where in L.A. you’d go to find a good Zil mechanic.

John O’Dell