Amazon uses Lada to promote new auto service
Amazon’s latest marketing campaign for its new used-car sales service has inexplicably featured a Russian-made vehicle, the Lada Vesta SW Cross, in one of its promotional images.
The campaign promotes Amazon Autos, which now allows customers to purchase used and certified pre-owned cars directly from Los Angeles-area dealerships. The promotional materials use the tagline ‘Beep Beep’, but one of the images clearly depicts an orange Lada Vesta – a model manufactured by Russia’s state-owned AvtoVAZ and never officially sold in the US.
The image has quickly drawn attention online, with social media users questioning why the American company is featuring a Russian-made car in its marketing. Commenters have pointed out that the Vesta is largely absent from Western markets and suggested the choice was unusual for a US-focused campaign.
Just days earlier, the US Republican Party faced similar scrutiny after posting a photograph intended to promote American manufacturing that included a Soviet-era Lada 1200. The image shows President Donald Trump standing in front of the bright yellow sedan, alongside a caption promoting what the party described as the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ to “bring back the great American car.”
The post prompted widespread mockery on social media, with users leaving comments such as “Make Lada Great Again” and “Bringing Soviet prosperity to a decaying America.” One wrote, “I didn’t know Lada had a factory in the US. Will there be a new trade deal with Russia next?”
Auto analyst Maksim Kadakov has suggested that the designers of the images may have sourced the photographs from European stock image databases to avoid copyright complications with American manufacturers.
