FSC Żuk A11

Polish roads have seen many a "beetle". In this case, however, we are not referring to the popular Volkswagen Beetle, but to the Polish "delivery van" - Żuk. This name covers a whole series of Polish delivery vehicles, produced by the Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych (Truck Factory) in Lublin between 1959 and 1998. The Żuk was a favorite of farmers, served postal workers from the Polish Post Office, and sometimes even played the role of a fire truck. Like the iconic Maluch, the Żuk was an everyday hero for many Poles.

The T-shirt features a Żuk from 1967, which was a version with a wooden cargo bed, giving it a payload capacity of 950 kg. Other variants of the Żuk were mainly used for transporting food products or clothing, but passenger models, i.e., minibusses, were also produced. In 1970, Żuks even began to be assembled in Egypt, and despite the obvious analogy, they were not called "Scarab" but Ramzes. The Egyptian ELTRAMCO plants assembled their Żuk-Ramzes until the 1990s, with many modifications introduced along the way.

The production of Żuk was halted in 1998, when the number of units produced reached 587,818. And although in terms of numbers and sales it was far behind the "beetle" Garbus, it does not mean that it was not a car that particularly served the common man. Its sharply outlined rectangular silhouette and the sad expression of its front bumper became iconic, and will be remembered for many years by working Poles of the Polish People's Republic era.

The author of the drawing is the Wrocław-based artist Paweł Grabowski.