IST has recently released a scale model of everyone’s favorite bespoke V8-powered Russian minibus from the 1960s, the ZiL 118 “Yunost.” That’s right, this is a 1:43 model of the luxury minibus based on the ZiL 111 limousine, which were handbuilt at Moscow’s ZiL factory from 1961 till 1970. Originally, around 2000 of these were supposed to be built each year, but the 118 fell victim to the complications inherent in a planned economy as well as internal factory politics. But instead of being completely forgotten and the whole project being scrapped, ZiL continued to build these minibuses as the orders came in. And not a whole lot came in. Before the model received a substantial facelift in 1970 (which we briefly saw last week in police livery), just twenty ZiL 118s had been built for various government customers. Yes, that’s averaging about 2 minibuses a year, an indulgence that would have bankrupted just about everybody who didn’t have carte blanche in the environment of a planned economy.

Powered by ZiL 130’s V8 engine making 150bhp, the ZiL 118 could reach speeds of up 140km/h. No two 118s were alike, each one had slightly different interior and exterior details. Most of these were built as luxury MPVs with 17 seats, but a number of special versions were also built, such as an ambulance and a TV truck. Fabrication techniques differed very little from those of the government limousines built alongside the 118, meaning that all body panels were hand-beaten, and it took months to assemble each example. ZiL’s output of limousines was even lower that Rolls-Royce’s at the time, so you can imagine just how much each ZiL limo or MPV would have cost if it was available on the open market. Amazingly enough, the Zil 118, is given very little attention in Andy Thompson’s Cars of the Soviet Union: The Definitive History, which we took a look at a couple months ago. Though arguably, the ZiL 118 was not a mass produced car by any stretch.

The 118 symbolized a progressive direction in industrial design in the 1960s, and the ZiL 118 tended to be featured in every calendar and magazine imaginable. The recognition and image that it acquired among the Soviet public was immensely disproportionate to just how many of these were actually made. Obviously, the 118 mimics some of the exterior design cues of the Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier, though the similarities end there. The 118 is much larger and longer, with the engine located it the front, with power going to the rear wheels through a 3-speed automatic transmission borrowed from the ZiL 111 limo. Avtoexport, the USSR’s foreign trade company, tried to market these to foreign countries, but it’s not clear if any were in fact ordered. This probably had something to do with the fact that the price would have likely been higher than that of a Bentley.

It’s hard to get a sense of scale with these: is it a smallish bus or a very large minivan? It’s arguably the former, as this thing is closer to stretched airport M-B Sprinter vans that carry around 15 people. Curiously enough, most 118s ended up being used as luxury MPVs for ferrying around government delegations, and were never used as tour buses for tourists, which was their original stated purpose. The same fate befell its successor, the ZiL 119, which replaced its predecessor’s curvy 1960s styling with a boxier look.

This model by IST is made from metal and plastic parts, and as you can see in the photos it has an incredible level of detail. If this was made by Minichamps, you could easily add another $100 to the price. But amazingly, a slightly cheaper version of this scale model has been out for a couple years, distributed by DeAgostini along with a small magazine. The DeAgostini version has blue highlights, and is a slightly simpler model when it comes to exterior detailing and paint quality.

For a handbuilt V8-powered luxury microbus that was made in only 20 copies over a period of 9 years, you’d think these would have all been preserved in museums, but apparently some are still out there, rotting away in the countryside.  Cue the Picard facepalm. So much for being an iconic piece of industrial design, eh? Not sure if this one in Georgia (not our Georgia) is worth restoring, as it’s still kind of hard to pin down values for a microbus less than ten of which have survived. It’s likely that a lot of parts are going to have to be remanufactured from scratch if anyone ever tried to restore it.

The e-Bays (short for Electric Bays) are the best and easiest way to get one of these scale models, and you shouldn’t pay for than $30.00 for IST’s version seen in this article. The cheaper version by DeAgostini with blue highlights seems to retail for around $15.00. But given the price difference between the two, I’d recommend the IST version, as the detail and assembly quality is much higher. You could even get both: the IST 118 for the bookshelf to weird out your in-laws, and an “expendable” DeAgostini version for your kid.