I have often wondered whether a generation of engineers who grew up in the Soviet Union used to watch episodes of Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds and saw it as an example of western technology that they had to compete with.

It’s the only plausible explanation for some of the things they built.

The spirit lives on in Russia today. This amphibious all-terrain vehicle is exactly the sort of thing you might expect to find in one of Thunderbird 2′s pods.