This utterly fantastic creation is called the Tupolev TU 007 Aerosled and has gone straight to the top of the PH office's 'I want' gadget list.
It may look like a prop from a James Bond movie, but this is actually the real Soviet deal - designed by Russian aviation legend Andrei Tupolev. It was the craft that the USSR used in the 1960s to recover is cosmonaut comrades who landed back on earth with a bump in the frozen wastes of Siberia.
The Aerosled is powered by a 365hp Vedenyev M14P 9-cylinder radial aircraft engine and was designed to skim over the surfaces of lakes, bogs, marshes and snow at speeds of up to 80mph.
We've also read that it earned its designer the rather grand accolade of 'Diploma of Finest Engineer in the USSR', so it's in that rather grandiose spirit that we've decided to name it the 'PistonHeads finest Soviet-era Device that is Neither Boat Nor Aeroplane'. A fitting tribute, we think.
This particular example was brought to the US from Russia in 1999 and is currently starring at the Greenwich Concours d'Elegance in Connecticut.
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