Automobile companies around the world are gearing up production in Russia in anticipation of the transportation needs of the country's growing middle class.

Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Toyota Corp all operate plants near St. Petersburg and three others -- Nissan, Suzuki and Hyundai -- have plans to build there soon.

General Motors Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner called the Russian city, "Detroit of the North," the Chicago Tribune reported.

"We are talking about a race, and it's taking place in Russia," said Siegfried Wolf, chief executive of parts supplier Magna International. "It's a fast-growing market in Russia, much faster than we expected."

It is a race driven by the country's growing economy and the Soviet Russian system that made cars a rarity.

Currently, only there are only 124 vehicles per 1,000 people in Russia, as opposed to 426 per 1,000 in Britain and 765 per 1,000 in the United States.

"The rapid growth in this market is unbelievable," Ichiro Chiba, director of Toyota's St. Petersburg plant told the newspaper. The market is growing "with the middle-class part of society being its locomotive," he said.