FSC Żuk A11 Van

Polish roads have seen many Żuks. In this case, however, we are not talking about the popular Volkswagen Beetle, but about the Polish "van" - Żuk. The name covers an entire series of Polish vans, produced by Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych in Lublin between 1959 and 1998. The Żuk was a favorite of farmers, served postal workers from Poczta Polska, 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 1967 Żuk, which is a version with a wooden cargo box that gave 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., minibuses, 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 the Żuk was stopped 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, this does not mean that it was not a car that particularly served the common person. Its sharply outlined rectangular silhouette and sad expression of the front bumper became iconic, and will be remembered for many years by working Poles of the PRL era.

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