Russo-Balt

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1973 USSR postage stamp with a 1909 Russo-Balt car.

Russo-Balt armoured car (1914)

Russo-Balt (sometimes Russobalt or Russo-Baltique) was the first Russian company that produced cars between 1909 and 1923.

Between 1909 and 1915 the cars were built at the railway car factory RBVZ in Riga, Latvia, and after the 1917 revolution a second factory was opened in Saint Petersburg, where they built armoured cars on chassis produced in Riga. In 1922, the production was moved from Saint Petersburg to BTAZ in Moscow. Russo-Balt produced both trucks and cars, often more or less copies of cars from the German Rex-Simplex or Belgian Fondu.

Today the company is still active in Riga and is producing trailers.

[edit] Concept car

Russo-Baltique Impression concept car (2006).

The Russian Russo-Baltique is now promoting a Russian-German luxury car concept, the Impression, first introduced at the 2006 Concours d'Elegance.

The brand (Руссо-Балт) was exhumed in 2006 by a group of German and Russian investors to propose a luxury concept car, the Russo-Baltique Impression is a coupé with strong hints of European styling of the early thirties. The car uses mechanical parts of Mercedes origin (Mercedes CL63 AMG).

The car will be produced by the German company Gerg GmbH, a total production of 10 to 15 cars maximum is expected, with a production rate of 2 to 3 cars a year. The selling price would be of around 50.000.000 rubles or 1.800.000 dollars.