In the declining months of the Mao administration, the Chairman forsaw the
need of a "Peoples' Roadster" as a right-thinking alternative to the
decadent sports vehicles produced by their arch rivals, the Soviets. Tossing
aside a few revisionist Packard designs based upon microfilm smuggled at
great cost out of Vladivostok, the Chairman commanded that his designers
create an entirely new concept. They responded with an air-cooled
rear-engine vehicle with a rounded shape which was promptly given the
affectionate nickname "the Cockroach". An optional clutchless transmission
"Buddhamatic" was envisioned, but was pronounced unproletariat and the
designer shot before plans could be put to paper.
When it was discovered that a similar vehicle was postulated by Porshe at
the direction of Adolph Hitler, the Chairman's face grew red with rage. He
dismissed the design team and kidnapped a retired Fiat mechanic living in
political exile in Czechoslovakia. This man, relying upon memories of his
youth in the mailroom of a Fiat dealership in Oslo created this beautiful
specimen --- the Troika. It was offered in a choice of Peoples' Red, or
Peoples' Yellow, and came with a small book with a matching cover.
After the collapse of the Mao administration, the vehicles fell into
disfavor, and the manufacturers were hunted ruthlessly. Refugees from the
Troika factory lashed batches of roadsters together as rafts and tried to
escape via Hong Kong. Since Troikas were constructed mostly of laminated
rice paper, this might have been a brilliant plan. They neglected, however,
to remove the engines, and sank just off the coast of mainland China.
During the recent recession, Japaneese fishermen came upon the
vehicle-rafts, having entangled them in their nets while poaching in Chinese
waters. They towed them on the seafloor into international waters, where
they claimed them as salvage and sold them on the black market to Asian
speculators for $16,000,752 yen each.
The one in this photograph is the only one now known to exist, the others
having been rendered down and resmelted into a line of high-carbon woks
which are available on the Home Shopping Network for 6 easy payments of
$9.99 plus $26.00 shipping & handling.
|