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The Warszawa was a Polish-built Russian cast-off - and you can't get much lowlier than that in the hierarchy of motor cars. Styled along the lines of a '40s Plymouth, it was constructed to the usual brief of ruggedness over sophistication. Powered by a side-valve, 2.1-litre engine, the original design was laid down by GAZ in 1946 as a mass-market people's car to get the country moving again after the war. Badged Pobieda (Victory), most ended up as taxis, ambulances or vans. Some were even built as four-wheel-drive off-roaders, or converted to incorporate skis and sold as snowmobiles.
Production in Russia lasted 12 years until 1958, when even the Russians decided they needed something a little more upbeat. Pobiedas were then, from 1951, built under licence by FSO in Poland (although, until 1955, the bodywork was imported from Russia) and badged Warszawa. First with a sidevalve engine, and later with an overhead-valve power source of, again, 2.1 litres, the beetle-backed 202 became the notchback 203 in 1965 and production lingered until 1974. This was miserable, austere transport that was very much at one with the anti-hedonistic, anti-individualist regime that gave birth to it.
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