Trucking in Poland behind Iron Wall

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
1

I just made some posts for other forum, but I think it can be interesting for you as well, so I post it here too:

As I have some time just now, I want to tell you few words about vehicles used in transport industry in most of ■■ century.

I am not a specialist, so they can be lot of errors in this post, but at last that will give you some view.

CARGO

First lorry made in Poland after II WW was Lublin, modernized version of soviet GAZ

Then shortly after Poland started to make own projects. As under communism regime all industry was central managed do not be suprised if you will see on pictures the same vehicles - they are only using the same cabs or something.

Main manufactures becomes Start in Starachowice (central Poland) and Jelcz in Jelcz (small town near Wrocław).

STAR

Started from vehicles similar to this one:

Star quick become specialist in middle class lorries like light tippers:

and fire engines:

They also were making normal lorries

and refrigeration vehicles:

the biggest vehicle was Star 1142, which is quite popular until today on polish roads:

But most famous they are for off-road military trucks like this one:

And famous Star 266 wide used in numerous armies, includig Israel and Saudi Arabia:

Star factory exist today as well, altough is in very poor financial condition. Cooperation in man bring new models as this one:

and of course something to replace old 266 model:

JELCZ

As far as i know first lorry from Jelcz was Żubr (the bison):

Other model was Tur (some kind of wild buffalo):

After that they started to make lorries under own make: Jelcz. This model is still likely to spot on the polish roads:

Newer one:

Rally truck for Paris - Dakar:

Fire engine:

After 1989 Jelcz tried to compete with western-european producers and relased some of heavy tractors like this one:

which were using lot of western european parts, but It had never had market success, so nowadays Jelcz is doing only buses in cooperarion with Mercedes.

Only exception is a short serie of heavy military lories like that ones


Lighter vehicles

There were three main manufactures of lighter vehicles: Żuk, Nysa i Tarpan.

Żuk

First started in 1956, there is one of oldest:

And newer one:

There were open back version as well:

And with long cab:

There were also mini buses:

Zuks was made almost unchanged up to late 90s. Now make is no longer exists.

Nysa

Nysa was a small van, mostly known as a police vans (old version):

Or ambulances (new version):

Nysa make is no longer in use, but Nysa factory is making pick up versions of popular polonez cars:

What is interesting: both Żuk and Nysa were based on firs afterwar polish car, Warszawa:
what was in fact russian GAZ based on some pre-war american construction. So Nysa, made up to 1992 or 1994 still had the same slightly modificated engine from 1926 year…

Tarpan

There was third manufacturer, specialised in making vehicles for farmers, made under make Tarpan (what is some of polish pony).

Its very often written over internet, that Tarpan was made near Lublin. It’s propably wrong, it was made somewhere near to Poznań…

Today Tarpan facotry specialised in military 4x4 vehicles such as Honker:

Its very good construction, polish soldiers in Iraq prefer that then Humvees.

Lublin
Succedor of Żuk are vans “Lublin” made till today:

What is interesting, Lublin factory was bought by LDV only to take over very smart project and then sold away. You can know this vehicle very well from british roads, but it was projected as a next generation of lublins:

OTHER

Interesting prototype of electric lorry from '50s - WA2

Pick ups

For the smallest range or vehicles there were various range of pick-ups available:

From Warszawa Pick up:

through Syrena R

and Syrena Bosto

for Fiat 125p Pick Up:

and Polonez truck (made till today -here in “roy” version)

there is one interesting thing worth to mention: prototype of cargo version of tiny Fiat 126p called “Bombel” (bubble):

Non -polish truck popular in Poland in this time

Skoda - Liaz (czech):

Tatra (czech)



Robur (east german)

(also buses)

Камаз (soviet union):

KrAZ (soviet union):

ЗиЛ (soviet union)

Multicar (propably east germany, but I am not sure)

IFA (east germany):

There were some western vehicles as well, mostly some old mercedes, berliets and what i remember from my childhood Hanomag Henschel (im not quite sure - is that german?)

I home that it can be interesting for you.

2

excellent post - the Lublin factory was bought by Daewoo of Korea, who then went bust, and LDV bought the whole tooling and assembly lines for a song

our company brought this back to Birmingham in 2003, around 60 heavy loads plus maybe 150 tilt loads by other companies - all still in the original packing cases including Korean foods (well, what the rats hadn’t had) and toilet rolls :laughing:

3

excellent post - the Lublin factory was bought by Daewoo of Korea, who then went bust, and LDV bought the whole tooling and assembly lines for a song

our company brought this back to Birmingham in 2003, around 60 heavy loads plus maybe 150 tilt loads by other companies - all still in the original packing cases including Korean foods (well, what the rats hadn’t had) and toilet rolls :laughing:

4

:smiley: Very very interesting, thank you orys

Hanomag Henschel

I am pretty sure they were both German makes.

5

:smiley: Very very interesting, thank you orys

Hanomag Henschel

I am pretty sure they were both German makes.

6

They must’ve all been stationary when the pics were taken otherwise they would’ve been obscured by the clouds of exhaust smoke :exclamation:

I’ve lost count of the times I spent as part of a lorry conga with an Eastern European (cant say Commie Bloc anymore in this racially diverse society that we live in :exclamation: ) lorry at the head of the queue :unamused:

I have to say that the blue Jelcz with the ‘new one’ caption is IMO the most ugly truck ever :open_mouth:

7

I believe Hamomag - Henschel were taken over by Mercedes Benz. I am sure that I have seen old style rounded front Merc 608 vans with Hanomag-Henschel names on the front instead of Merc.

8

By the way I found really good commercial of military Tatra lorries on youtube:

It’ really awesome!

9

newmercman:
They must’ve all been stationary when the pics were taken otherwise they would’ve been obscured by the clouds of exhaust smoke :exclamation:

Yeah, my father told me once a story. When he was doing his doctor degree on National Cooperative Farm they bought couple of new ЗиЛ lorries. In users manual was stated “30 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres” (yeah, the ЗиЛs are running on petrol) but they cannod beat it down under about 60-70 litres…

They called warranty service from Soviet Union and they came after few weeks and asked “what’s the problem”. They told them about terrific fuel consuption, and they laughed and told them “Do not waste our time, we got few on Ukraina, which burns 150 l / 100 km” and then they were gone :wink:

I have to say that the blue Jelcz with the ‘new one’ caption is IMO the most ugly truck ever :open_mouth:

You mean this tractor? That was a disaster not only in design. It was using plenty of parts from various manufactures - engines from iveco, gearboxes from mercedes, something from MAN, something from Steyr. When you had breakdown somewhere abroad main problem was "what service you shall call? Mercedes, MAN…?

10

They used component parts to make the trucks which makes sense, but ruined it with that cab :open_mouth:

Some of the Skoda & Liaz were pretty good looking lorries, do you have any pics of them?

11

orys:
I just made some posts for other forum, but I think it can be interesting for you as well, so I post it here too:

As I have some time just now, I want to tell you few words about vehicles used in transport industry in most of ■■ century.

I am not a specialist, so they can be lot of errors in this post, but at last that will give you some view.

CARGO

First lorry made in Poland after II WW was Lublin, modernized version of soviet GAZ

Then shortly after Poland started to make own projects. As under communism regime all industry was central managed do not be suprised if you will see on pictures the same vehicles - they are only using the same cabs or something.

Main manufactures becomes Start in Starachowice (central Poland) and Jelcz in Jelcz (small town near Wrocław).

STAR

Started from vehicles similar to this one:

Star quick become specialist in middle class lorries like light tippers:

and fire engines:

They also were making normal lorries

and refrigeration vehicles:

the biggest vehicle was Star 1142, which is quite popular until today on polish roads:

But most famous they are for off-road military trucks like this one:

And famous Star 266 wide used in numerous armies, includig Israel and Saudi Arabia:

Star factory exist today as well, altough is in very poor financial condition. Cooperation in man bring new models as this one:

and of course something to replace old 266 model:

JELCZ

As far as i know first lorry from Jelcz was Żubr (the bison):

Other model was Tur (some kind of wild buffalo):

After that they started to make lorries under own make: Jelcz. This model is still likely to spot on the polish roads:

Newer one:

Rally truck for Paris - Dakar:

Fire engine:

After 1989 Jelcz tried to compete with western-european producers and relased some of heavy tractors like this one:

which were using lot of western european parts, but It had never had market success, so nowadays Jelcz is doing only buses in cooperarion with Mercedes.

Only exception is a short serie of heavy military lories like that ones


Lighter vehicles

There were three main manufactures of lighter vehicles: Żuk, Nysa i Tarpan.

Żuk

First started in 1956, there is one of oldest:

And newer one:

There were open back version as well:

And with long cab:

There were also mini buses:

Zuks was made almost unchanged up to late 90s. Now make is no longer exists.

Nysa

Nysa was a small van, mostly known as a police vans (old version):

Or ambulances (new version):

Nysa make is no longer in use, but Nysa factory is making pick up versions of popular polonez cars:

What is interesting: both Żuk and Nysa were based on firs afterwar polish car, Warszawa:
what was in fact russian GAZ based on some pre-war american construction. So Nysa, made up to 1992 or 1994 still had the same slightly modificated engine from 1926 year…

Tarpan

There was third manufacturer, specialised in making vehicles for farmers, made under make Tarpan (what is some of polish pony).

Its very often written over internet, that Tarpan was made near Lublin. It’s propably wrong, it was made somewhere near to Poznań…

Today Tarpan facotry specialised in military 4x4 vehicles such as Honker:

Its very good construction, polish soldiers in Iraq prefer that then Humvees.

Lublin
Succedor of Żuk are vans “Lublin” made till today:

What is interesting, Lublin factory was bought by LDV only to take over very smart project and then sold away. You can know this vehicle very well from british roads, but it was projected as a next generation of lublins:

OTHER

Interesting prototype of electric lorry from '50s - WA2

Pick ups

For the smallest range or vehicles there were various range of pick-ups available:

From Warszawa Pick up:

through Syrena R

and Syrena Bosto

for Fiat 125p Pick Up:

and Polonez truck (made till today -here in “roy” version)

there is one interesting thing worth to mention: prototype of cargo version of tiny Fiat 126p called “Bombel” (bubble):

Non -polish truck popular in Poland in this time

Skoda - Liaz (czech):

Tatra (czech)



Robur (east german)

(also buses)

Камаз (soviet union):

KrAZ (soviet union):

ЗиЛ (soviet union)

Multicar (propably east germany, but I am not sure)

IFA (east germany):

There were some western vehicles as well, mostly some old mercedes, berliets and what i remember from my childhood Hanomag Henschel (im not quite sure - is that german?)

I home that it can be interesting for you.

Thanks orys brought back a few memories of when i used to run to poland[late90s] mainly to warsaw but also poznan.

12

newmercman:
They used component parts to make the trucks which makes sense, but ruined it with that cab :open_mouth:

Some of the Skoda & Liaz were pretty good looking lorries, do you have any pics of them?

No, but try on google graphics

13

Very interesting orys,I remember many of those old trucks on trips to Poland 1981-2.

You can still see those IFA trucks on the road today in the former DDR.

14

Lot of this lorries are still popular in Poland, as some of them are really indestructable.

One guy driving Kamaz lorry told me once "It’s briliant lorry, it’s written that you can load 10 tons, but you can load 20 and it will still drive :slight_smile:

15

When I was running to the M/E in the '70’s,I used to see a lot of Star and Jelcz trucks in Bulgy.
I was told at one time that Jelcz trucks had the Leyland 680 engine in,and if you heard one,you would believe it,just the same as when the 680 was used in DAF’s,you could tell that engine anywhere.

16

some great old photos there orys - the lublin plant was taken over by daewoo of korea who then went bust, LDV bought all the new and unused tooling for 10% of book value from the liquidators and we brought it all (60 big loads, plus about 150 tilts done by others) back to birmingham end of 2003

all the stuff was still in it’s korean packing cases, including korean toilet rolls and bags of rice :laughing:

17

bestbooties:
When I was running to the M/E in the '70’s,I used to see a lot of Star and Jelcz trucks in Bulgy.
I was told at one time that Jelcz trucks had the Leyland 680 engine in,and if you heard one,you would believe it,just the same as when the 680 was used in DAF’s,you could tell that engine anywhere.

Yes, that’s right. There were Leyland engines in some Jelcz lorries and buses.

18

orys:
Камаз (soviet union):

ЗиЛ (soviet union)

Hi orys, That is a fascinating post, thanks for taking the time to do it.:grimacing:

Now I’m wondering how you got this message board to display Cyrillic letters. :question:
The first one says “Kamaz” and the second one says “Zil” though…:wink:

19

It’s taking all encoding. See?
Polish: zażÃ³łć gęślą jaźń trąbniętą
French: èéê îîîïóóôôô ççççççç
Russian: ЗиЛ
Chinese: 汉语/漢語,

If you do not have them installed in your PC, you can always copy and paste from somewhere :wink: php forums are quite smart. :wink:

20

Should’nt the chinese script have started on the other side of the page :laughing: :wink: