There is a perception today that cars should only come from a few places. Poland no longer builds cars at the plant that built todays Warszawa 223, while Sindelfingen still builds cars where tomorrows fintail came from. Is that fair? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp issue displays the products over time of the Zeran car factory near Warsaw. The Warszawa 223 had left production 3 years before this stamp issue which also included the then current models. A great way to show heritage that was still evolving. The last Polish designed car left the Zeran factory in 2003 and the last locally assembled Korean car was in 2011. Neither event was recognized by a stamp. Sad endings…
Todays stamp is issue A665, a 1.5 Zloty stamp issued by Poland on November 6th, 1976. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used. There is also a souvenir sheet with all four stamps from the issue.
The Zeran automobile factory opened in 1948. As a gift from the always generous Josef Stalin, the factory was given a license to build the first Soviet indigenous car, the GAZ M20 Pobeda. By European standards, it was a larger car that was suitable for lower level officials and police and taxi work. It was rear wheel drive with a 2.1 liter four cylinder engine. The car had some similarity to the 1938 German Opel Kapitan, a car designed for Germany by Opel’s American parent General Motors. The Russian car was made in Gorky along the Volga river as part of the factory shift east during World War II financed by the USA. The Pobeda was succeeded by the Volga line of sedans.
A Polish copy of a Russian car influenced by a car designed in America for use in Germany. Well you have to start somewhere. Japan’s early offerings were similar except that their copying often lacked license. After the Pobeda left production in Russia, development continued in Poland. The Warszawa 223 featured a more modern body in the pontoon style common on Mercedes of the day. The engine was updated to an overhead valve design and the floor shift was replaced by a synchronized steering column shifter. I mentioned taxi service, and like Mercedes Warszawa added a diesel engine aimed at that use. In the late 1960s, an even more modern style body and a six cylinder were contemplated.
Instead the Zeran factory licenced production of the Fiat 125 to replace the Warszawa 223. As with the Warszawa before it, the Poles designed a new modern body called the Polonez to go on the older design that allowed production to extend into the 21st century.
Poland tried to keep car assembly going after the Polonez faded. Korean Daewoos were assembled even after Daewoo itself went bankrupt and they made the Aveo till 2011 when the license ran out. 1800 workers then lost their job.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in anticipation of tomorrows study of the eqivelent Mercedes. What were they doing right that saw them survive, or was it luck? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.