Top Gear's "best" car from Poland dropped 15 years ago
April 22 marks the 15th anniversary of the closedown of the Polonez, a Polish-produced compact car manufactured in the FSO motor plant in Warsaw since 1978. Its body was designed by famous Giugiaro.
FSO introduced the Polonez, a 5-door compact car based on the earlier Polski Fiat 125p, in 1978. The Polonez was exported to many markets under the FSO brand and was updated several times during its production. The Polski Fiat 125, a simplified version of the Fiat 125, was the result of Poland's 1965 licence contract with Italian auto manufacturer Fiat and was produced until 1991.
Polonez's body was designed by a renowned supercar (among others, Ferrari, Lamborghini and many everyday cars - PAP) Italian designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who apart from vehicles also worked on popular Nikon cameras, firearms, watches, etc.
In Oct, 1983 moto show Top Gear's Willam Woollard and Sue Baker devoted the whole episode to Eastern Europe's car industry, focusing on the Polish one. While Woollard visited Poland to expound on the Polish car market and economy overall, Baker back in UK conducted tests of cars from behind the iron curtain sold in the West, on top with the "dearest of them" Polonez going at GBP 3,900, which equalled, as Woollard put it, "5 years' wages" of a Polish worker.
On his visit to Warsaw's FSO plant Top Gear host noted that its workers' pay dis not exceed GBP 90. He also pointed out that notwithstanding a high level of automatisation of car production "it still takes 51 hrs to make a Polish car as opposed to a Japanese one".
What the British tv programme seemed to have omitted, however, was Polonez's excellent safety score. In 1978 it was the only Eastern European car to pass American crash tests. In 1994 a EU-conducted safety regulation test Polonez's model Caro 1,9 GTD after hitting a concrete block at 50 km/h (31 mph - PAP) retained 40% of the front, with all its doors capable of being easily opened, lack of serious injuries to passengers, and no fuel leaks.
Despite fairly good performance and superior safety level, the Polonez won dubious fame when in March 1996 Jeremy Clarkson, host of Top Gear series new edition, called it "the worst car in the world to actually drive", with Nissan Sunny as "the worst car of all time".
Coincidentally, April 22 also marks the 40th anniversary of Top Gear, whose first installment was aired on April 22, 1977.
