According to various sources, the garage of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev contained from 49 to 324 not only Soviet, but also foreign cars. Brezhnev loved cars and often drove them himself. The Central News Service publication named Leonid Ilyich’s five favorite foreign cars. The cars were stored in the Kremlin Special Purpose Garage, at his dacha in Zarechye, and in Crimea.
One of Brezhnev’s favorite cars was a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air. Nikita Khrushchev gave Brezhnev the car, and Brezhnev himself later gave the foreign car to his daughter Galina. The Chevrolet Bel Air was produced from 1949 to 1975 and was named after a prestigious area in Los Angeles.
The General Secretary’s second favorite car was the Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman (W100) limousine, which was given to him by German Chancellor Willy Brandt. The model’s distinctive feature was its six-door body. Only two of these modifications were built. One went to Brezhnev, the second to the Emperor of Japan. In 2008, this 1969 Mercedes-Benz was sold to a private collection in Germany for 103,600 euros.
Most of Brezhnev’s cars were gifts and presented to the General Secretary by top officials of foreign countries. Thus, French President Georges Pompilou gave Brezhnev a Citroen SM with a 188-horsepower Maserati V6 engine in 1971. When he first got behind the wheel of a Citroen, Brezhnev admitted that the car was a bit cramped and the engine was too loud, but he ended up liking the Citroen. After Leonid Brezhnev’s death in 1983, the car was given to the Moscow Automobile and Road Construction Institute (MADI), and in 1998, the Citroen SM was sold to the Netherlands.
In 1973, two exclusive Nissan President cars were manufactured in Japan. One was built as a service car for the Japanese Prime Minister, the second – for Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev.
Another favorite car of Brezhnev was the 1960 Opel Kapitan sedan. At that time, the car was not new. It was a gift to Leonid Ilyich from his daughter Galina and her husband. Brezhnev also had many other cars in his collection that he loved. Among them are the Lincoln Continental and the Cadillac Eldorado, a gift from American President Nixon, as well as a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow from Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.
