The Ilya Revel Dragon

Ilya is pushing his Citroen --a 1949 Big 6 -- backwards up a hill, towards a Russian castle.  But why is he pushing on the outside edge of the tyre, rather than pushing on the car body?

HINT:
This dragon has cues to favour a solution encoded like the clues in a cryptic crossword where A criminal orchestra has sex appeal, in 6 letters is the clue to BANDIT
This graphic is (C) Harvey A. Cohen, 1974, 1975, 2002 and its reproduction for any commercial purpose is forbidden.
More Cryptic Clues to Ilya
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