Jelcz 300

Jelcz is not only a favorite place for people from Lower Silesia to spend summer afternoons by the lake. Jelcz is also famous for its trucks, with the iconic 300 series produced between 1968 and 1992. However, before our Jelcz went into production, Jelcz Car Plants were manufacturing its predecessor, the Żubr A80. It was a flawed model, but it had a payload capacity of up to 8 tons – it was the only Polish-made truck of its kind at the time. The Jelcz plants began work on a new, better-designed truck model in 1966, aiming to produce a vehicle that could carry loads weighing from 10 to 12 tons.

Thus, in 1967, prototypes of the Jelcz "three-hundreds" were created. In the early 1970s, the payload even exceeded the dreamed-of 12 tons, allowing for the transport of 18-ton loads. Despite increasingly better results, the vehicles from Jelcz did not satisfy the manufacturers. Therefore, in 1972, the Car Plants turned to the Austrian company Steyr-Daimler-Puch with a proposal for cooperation. From then on, Austrian components were used in Polish trucks. Soon after, due to technical difficulties, cooperation was discontinued, and the Jelcz plants returned to improving old designs, thus maintaining production until the 1990s. Now the famous "three-hundreds" are not seen on the streets, but they might be seen on T-shirts – thanks to you, Jelcz will remain iconic.

The author of the drawing is Wrocław artist Paweł Grabowski.