Comments:
The FSO Syrena Sport - or the most beautiful car from behind the Iron Curtain 🏎️🇵🇱
Showcasing a car less likely to be seen here - the prototype FSO Syrena Sport from Poland, launched in 1957. In spite of raving reception from the press and public, they were unfortunately never placed onto serial production.
Picture from: Wikipedia
Powered by a four stroke boxer twin with 700ccm and 35bhp in prototype form and planned 50bhp in production form it sounds like not much for today but for back in the day paired with a weight of 717 kg it was more than adequate.
Praised as the most beautiful car from behind the Iron Curtaon by the Italian Press it remains one of those ‘could have been’ vehicles unfortunately, as production was finally forbidden by the leadership 🤷🏻♂️
As a small piece of trivia, the engine auxiliaries were from a Panhard Dyna, although the engine itself wasn’t 👍🏻
How do you like it?
Picture from: Wikipedia
The distance in 1970 was not as much…
The first 911s started with 130bhp if I recall correctly 😉
The early ones had 195/65R15 tires…
Way too small for most compact city cars nowadays 😂
I guess given that it came out in 1970…
Western car magazines were no longer interested 🤷🏻♂️
I also always thought so…
Imagine it as a restomod with a BMW motorcycle boxer engine 🦾
A bit older than the Sprite, though 😊
The SL was apparently one of the design inspirations 😊👍🏻
I don't remember ever seeing this one before!
Despite not speaking Polish, I can easily understand the headline on the side of the stand - You Can't Buy a Legend xD.... It's a very attractive design, no doubt about it. Nowadays, the only hyper-successful and impressive vehicle manufacturer in the region is Rimac 
....
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Hyper successful is a relative term…
Hype-d for sure and I definitely have to give them credit there. From the latest public figures they make a loss of over €1million per every Bugatti sold.
But they had great timing where several large manufacturers (primarily Porsche and Hyundai) had plenty of cash to burn for electrification and invested some there. I believe Hyundai left after they finished developing their own 800V architecture and Porsche would like to sell their stake but have completely unreasonable expectations 🤷🏻♂️
But they had great timing where several large manufacturers (primarily Porsche and Hyundai) had plenty of cash to burn for electrification and invested some there. I believe Hyundai left after they finished developing their own 800V architecture and Porsche would like to sell their stake but have completely unreasonable expectations 🤷🏻♂️
Oh, it's going to be a real cliff-hanger to witness how that all pans out longer-term!!
Most likely outcome?
Porsche exits and once the money is burned (bar the last couple of tens of millions for the owner) it all gets closed down and enters the automotive history books 🤷🏻♂️
Unfortunately their component business never took off and the volumes of their cars keep them deep in the loss making territory 🤷🏻♂️
It's particularly relevant that you point out the components business....
which was indeed heavily hyped, but I never once followed up on how it was actually doing at present.... Evidently nowhere near as well as they would have hoped for 🙃....
It’s not an easy market…
They lack both scale and an USP to make it fun financially. A lot of mid tier suppliers have burned themselves there, as it’s a segment both they and the OEMs knew too little about. Most are bleeding money hand over fist, partially also as a result of the OEMs mistakes…
That really is a cute car from a bygone era, it actually reminds me of a lot of other cars from that time and in a good way.
Marc
It is not a completely stand-out design…
But I find the elements well applied and matched into a coherent whole. Too bad they never got produced in larger numbers 🤷🏻♂️