Hang onto your big, furry hats, this one will be a little different. This is a 1983 SMZ S-3D. This highly-unusual yet highly-desirable (for me, at least) car is listed on eBay in London, United Kingdom with a Buy It Now price of £550 ($803). It’s in rough shape so you’ll need to drag out the welder for a weekend or two. But, once you’re done you will never, ever see another one at the car show that you enter it in. At least in the US you’ll never see one.

It looks like it’s coming and going at the same time; classic “three-box design“. This is a Soviet microcar, or, a cycle-car, made specifically for physically disabled folks in the former Soviet Union and they weren’t weren’t officially sold to non-disabled people. They were made by Серпуховский Мотозавод, you know that company, don’t you?! It’s the Serpukhov Motor Works and between 1970 and 1997 they produced this car for folks who couldn’t operate foot pedals; it has only hand controls, there are no foot-operated pedals at all. These are small cars, at 2.6 meters or around 8.5′ in length. Here is another car showing the luggage compartment in front. And, here is a photo of how this car will look after you’ve restored it and are on your cross-country tour.

Here is yet another case where spending ten minutes cleaning things up a bit may have led to a quicker sale, or even led to more money. But, I digress. The seller says that this car has “some rust and dents”, which you can see from clicking on the eBay link. These cars were provided by the former Soviet Union to disabled people on a five-year, no-cost basis and at the end of five years they were to turn them in and get a new one, again at no cost. They were known as “motor-wheelchairs” in the USSR and they were similar in idea to Britain’s Invacar. Some of the owners were able to register the cars in their own names and that’s how some of them made it out into public. They are very rare cars.

Here is a YouTube video showing a restored car putt-putting around in all of its cool, blue-smoke glory. This is actually a nice design, in my opinion. We generally may not think of the USSR as having been a design powerhouse, but this car turned out well. I don’t have a clue what the gauges or buttons or switches are for, or even how the operating controls work; hopefully one of you will know how this thing worked. If you do, please let us know in the comments section.

The seller says that the car can’t be started because some parts are taken off, but they have two spare engines and a lot of spare parts, which is very nice. You’ll need those, parts will be almost impossible to find for this car, unless one of you knows a source that I don’t know of. There is no question that either you or your preferred motorcycle shop will be able to get this baby humming in no time. This isn’t rocket science, but it is a Russian-made IZH-P3-01 motorcycle engine with 346cc and 28 hp, giving this 454 kg (1,000 lb) car a top speed of a respectable 43 mph, more than enough for getting around in the city. This car is right in my sweet spot, if this car was in the US it would most likely end up in our garage. Is this unusual Russian cycle-car too far out in left field for you or could you picture yourself driving to a car show in something like this?