Why Is Amazon Using a Lada to Advertise its Used-Car Listings?

Amazon now has used-car listings. For now, only Los Angeles dealers can list used and certified pre-owned vehicles, with customers completing the sale through Amazon. A big deal, but us being complete nerds, were distracted by one of the cars Amazon is using to advertise the service.

It is, of all things, a Lada Vesta SW Cross, a lifted station wagon from Russia’s state-owned automaker. A car that isn’t sold in many markets outside of Russia, and definitely not the US. 

A strange choice to be sure. It’s not uncommon to see companies use images that might be a made-up rendering or a mashup of multiple different models to represent a generic car. Amazon itself also uses a Ram 1500 with its logos removed in its press release on the new used-car service. But a Lada? It must’ve been in a royalty-free image somewhere, and no one at Amazon figured anyone would raise an eyebrow. They didn’t see us coming.

What’s especially funny is that this is the second time in a week this sort of thing has happened. As our friends at The Autopian report, the GOP used an image of an old Lada in a tweet about how the Trump Administration’s Big Beautiful Bill will “make automobiles great again” and “will drive the return of the great American car.”  

Amazon Autos launched its service a while back with Hyundai, and as of right now, its used-car listings come from LA-area Hyundai dealers. Amazon says it plans on adding new, non-Hyundai dealers in the coming months.

We can’t imagine we’ll see many Ladas listed for sale there.