50th Anniversary of the Polski Fiat 125p

On this day fifty years ago, the very first Polski Fiat 125p rolled off the production line at the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (FSO) in Warsaw's Żerań. The licence-built copy of the Italian saloon car was in continuous production until 1991, with more than 1.4 million made. A common (though not as common as its small brother, the Polski Fiat 126p) sight on Poland's roads right through to the late 1990s. Today considered a classic, well-preserved examples are highly sought after by collectors.

To mark the half-century that's passed since the start of production, a small exhibition has been staged in a tent outside the Palace of Culture (Plac Defilad, facing ul, Marszałkowska), which I visited today.

Poland had had a licence-building relationship with Fiat since before WW2; from 1935 to 1939, the Polski Fiat 508 III (below) was produced at the PZInż factory in Warsaw (from 1932 to 1935 the Polski Fiat 508 I and 508 II were assembled there.)

At the time, the Fiat 125 (below) represented sharp, modern European styling, a far cry from the lumpy Warszawa 223 that was produced in parallel at FSO until production of the that type ceased in 1973, by which time the Warszawa was a complete anachronism. The Polski Fiat 125p was a simplified, lower-cost version of the Italian 125, with engines from the discontinued Fiat 1300 and 1500 saloons, while the Italian cars had new 1600 and 1800cc engines and square headlamps.

Below: an estate version (kombi) was produced, and successfully exported too. This is the ambulance version. I had a ride in one of these in 1979; the ambulance driver was moonlighting as a taxi outside a railway station somewhere in western Poland, from where he drove me to a lakeside chalet resort where I was meeting my group of young Poles from London on our Montserrat holiday. The journey (around 25km) cost me $10, I remember.

This is a prototype 4x4 version of the estate; with mechanicals based on the Soviet Lada Niva, it was never put into production because of difficulties in obtaining those Soviet parts.

After Martial Law was imposed in December 1981, the FSO factory lost many of its key workers, and soldiers were drafted in to keep the machines running. Quality plummeted. Fiat was upset that its brand was attached to products of such execrable reliability that it insisted the 125p was renamed the FSO 125p. The car continued to be sold under the FSO brand until production ceased in 1991.

This exhibition runs until next Monday, 4 December, if you can't make it but like the Fiat 125p, there are usually a handful available for hire for retro-style tours of central Warsaw, based in front of the Palace of Culture.

Another view, in the sunlight, yesterday morning.

Bonus shot - a 1972 Ford Capri 1600 GT at the DESA Unicum auction house on ul. Piękna. The auction takes place this Saturday (2 December) and the car is expected to fetch up to 80,000 złotys (£17,000). My father had one like this (1600, but not GT), in bright red, with maroon upholstery. Says it was his favourite car ever, in over 60 years of driving.

This time last year:
Fidel Castro's death divides the world

This time two years ago:
London to Edinburgh by night bus

This time four year ago:
The Regent's Canal, London

This time six years ago:
An end to the entitlement way of thinking

This time seven year:
West Ealing - drab and sad suburb

This time eight years ago:
To Poznań by train

This time ten years ago:
Late autumn drive-time