Poland turned to Fiat in the 1930s to produce vehicles for the military with only a handful of restored or replica vehicles still around today
When Poland was officially ‘reborn’ on November 11, 1918, after 123 years of partitions, the country consisted of three different organisms with separate law systems, currencies, local authorities and even differentiated railway track gauges and directions of car travel.
Being worn out by World War One, with fronts rolling a couple of times onto Polish soil, the country faced many challenges. Long after peace was celebrated in Western Europe, the young state needed to fight to shape its borders.
Fighting in the west with Germany and then bloody war with the Soviet Union exhausted state resources. Finally, independence was defended in 1921 but conditions for the country’s economy and industry were far from satisfactory.
One of the many problems was the lack of motor vehicles, which had mostly been destroyed or taken by hostile armies. But thanks to the open market, the import of foreign cars and motorcycles developed in a short period.
In the first half of the 1920s, lots of British automotive brands appeared on the Vistula, but still, the car itself was a rar…
