7 – VNIITE Taxi concept 1964
The VNIITE (All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Industrial Design) was established in Russia in 1962, but initially its mission was not to produce vehicles. Rather it had the mandate of improving the design and quality of Russian products to close the gap between what was being offered on each side of the Iron Curtain.
One of the products it came up with was this absolutely charming taxi concept. So charming was it that the city of New York took an interest in the project, and its mayor declared he would love to see some units of the model work the streets of NYC. Sadly, the impossibility of any commercial dealings between the American and Soviet states at the time kept this from being anything but a pipedream.
