GOP Social Media Oopsie

[Bernard Woolley]

I did wonder if this was real for a moment, but, yes, it does appear to be!

[Pdf27]

Best equivalent image I could find of the apparent car (1976 Lada 2101) - I've flipped it to make comparison easier, so ignore the gas tank flap as that should be on the other side.

image_2025-08-03_193600318.png

Looks very similar but not enough identifying points to be certain it's an actual car not an AI trained on Ladas.

[Sukhoiman]

my first thought was Fiat 1100... thats the car I drove in India while visiting family long time ago (its called padmini there in the previous duopoly with the morris oxford based tooling "ambassador")....post 90s era boom they are exceedingly rare, most are scrapped or chicken coop uses etc.

But there were a lot of cars in 50s/60s with this generic look of that time.

The rims in that 1st pic suggest stock image + AI as well, seem kind of out of place.

[Pdf27]

Lada 2101 is a license-built Fiat 124, which was more or less the replacement for the 1100 you're thinking of. I say more or less because they also made the 128, which is visually very similar to the 124.

[Bernard Woolley]

Someone seems to have found a Lada that almost matches the pic: linky.

[Pdf27]

No "almost" about it IMHO - matching decal on the C Pillar and rust/dirt pattern around the rear wing. I think they used this stock image without checking what type of car it was.

[Nightwatch2]

Sheez……..

Is this for real?

Edit inserted - yes it appears so. Tweeted out (or is that X’d out?) by the GOP. This puts us almost on par with the DNC video clip some years ago of patriotic (or idiotic) with the Soviet Navy ships and Turkish Flight Demonstration Team.
Edit off

Probably an AI assisted Deep State operative embedded in the add campaign contractor

(Sarcasm)

[Sukhoiman]

Lada 2101 is a license-built Fiat 124, which was more or less the replacement for the 1100 you're thinking of. I say more or less because they also made the 128, which is visually very similar to the 124.

Yup you are right. Looks like FIAT basically did fairly generous tooling contracts (given their production runs) with the statist monoliths like found in USSR and (cold war "license raj") India.

Jay Leno has a nice episode on it (lot of nostalgic Indians in the comment section too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uk-qkmCXRc

An Indian YT channel reminiscing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5CLW23Yaw

The exact one I drove (my uncle's) was the 1100D i suppose, 2nd from the left

1100D.jpg

Honestly didnt know a station wagon model even existed.

[Kunkmiester]

Definitely weren't any car guys involved.

[Belushi TD]

I'm not sure I'd jump immediately to internal sabotage.

Marketing people are NOTORIOUS for being severely blinkered, and not knowing a whole lot of detailed knowledge outside their field. Would not at all suprise me that whoever was in charge was just outside their box, and ran with it.

Belushi TD

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Given state of US auto industry and its suppliers, with new 'unregulated' cars, freed of 'emission control', likely offering a vast thirst and half prior tank range...

Are there any home-grown US internal-combustion vehicles that would fit budget niche ??

[Nightwatch2]

Given state of US auto industry and its suppliers, with new 'unregulated' cars, freed of 'emission control', likely offering a vast thirst and half prior tank range...

Are there any home-grown US internal-combustion vehicles that would fit budget niche ??

“Unregulated” cars, with half the range?

[warshipadmin]

How much of the emissions stuff are they threatening to toss out? I thought it was just mpg hence CO2/mile.

[Micael]

It’s even more odd because the various mistakes inserting Soviet/Russian ships/planes you can sort of understand because they look cool. Why on earth would you pick a photo of this decidedly uncool car even if you thought it was American? If you do a simple google search for ”classic american cars” you get image results along the lines in the attached image, how do you then arrive at that Lada? Incomprehensible.

[Sukhoiman]

maybe it was a deep way to harness streisand effect in the end.

no one would have noticed if there wasnt this weird oopsie to begin with heh

[Pdf27]

How much of the emissions stuff are they threatening to toss out? I thought it was just mpg hence CO2/mile.

There are also ongoing lawsuits about the California emissions rules that Trump is blocking - https://calmatters.org/environment/2025 ... rules-cars