Hello from Budapest--Custom Warszava project

Custom Warszawa project,
thats right you, you are reading it correctly.
What's that, you say.
Its a commo......, produced car from the 60's.

Technically not really HAMB friendly material, but I thought I would like to share with you guys how we went about customising such a car, and with what non-existent real rodding/custom material here in Hungary.

Bigbore, here (aka... Atilla the Hun), I am doing all the work on this old girl and I just started up this full custom project for my friend Steve (Pisti).
We are both founding members of our rod club here,.... Rusty Rodders.

So after many Palinka's (thats a potent distilled alcohol) we said why not, lets give this old girl the full custom treatment.
We decided, it would get chop top, tudor conversion, B pillar mods, rolled rear pan, full piece rear door mods, motor and suspension changeover, to name just a few.
But it will be still, finished in matt black with stripping.

The pics here are of Steve's car just prior to taking it off the road.
Compare it with the original looking one.
Even then it looked better than the factory original.

Steve's car was an old movie prop car here, in some sort of war movie.
It was missing the motor, trans and interior.
So with the purchase of a donor car, parts were swapped over, painted matt black and then the car was made roadworthy.
One of Steve's close friend, originally started the car but was tragically killed in a motor bike accident, and then Steve got the car and used it this way as his daily driver for over a year.

Hope you guys will enjoy the build/make over as we progress.
Its sure going to upset a few tradionalists and commo's over here.

 

Nice work, I am sure it is not all that easy in your country to find and do that kind of work. My hats off to you.

 

Good luck with the project.How much are you chopping it?
It may be a '60's car but, as you know,a lot of European cars in the '60's still had a '50's look to them.I think it'll look cool.
Keep us posted!
Mark

 

Whats a commo....

that like an american homo...

this place is full of em....and they upset easy...

My friend just married a great broad from Hungary....

And all I can say is **** palinka.....

cool project....let me know if you crazy Palinka drink fools need anything....

my boy does get over there often....and hes always carring something...

 

Neat station wagon, I have two 1947 Pobeda sedans in the shed.

 

I'd like to offer you my encouragement. Rodding/customizing is not so much the car, as it is the desire...

 

Hello from Holland

Chop it to the max if you can !

 

watching and waiting for build pictures on this one.

 

On the front, we decided we would do 4'' whilst on the rear we would look at the options on how much,
As the original roof lines at the rear window openings are somewhat unusal.
I will post more pictures later today, which shows the start of the roof cuts.

 

Greetings from Finland bigbore. I visit budapest frequently due to my job, and I just love your town. Nice to see there's rodders also since I must admit that I haven't seen too many U.S cars over there.

Here's a pic from your streets a few weeks back, so the others know that this build is a lot cooler than the rest over there

Keep the faith!

 

Needs white walls!The caps and headlight rings are from Gaz 21 Volga? Check out my Volga under my profile.

Cool project!

 

Okay , thats me ( in the background pic)) contemplating where to next, basically I marked out the planned areas to cut, then with 3M stripped dics, sanded back the work areas.
Masked up the A pillar for the planned 4'' cut and hacked away with the hacksaw.

 

After doing the cuts , I laid down the roof section to the A pillar to see what alignment issues came up.
Well, no real suprises, but a few extra hours here and there will fix it in the end.
Unfortunately these words will haunt me all along on the project.

 

Steve (Pisti) I think is now starting to worry.
Could he be having second thoughts, on the whole thing now that the after efforts of the Palinka has worn off.

 

Best of luck, it's a very cool wagon. Tell me more about the drivetrain.

 

Cool car! I spent 6 months in Hungary.....someday I will make it back. Very fun place to visit....

 

Currently its got a Fordggranada V6 and standard front and rear ends.
But as with the rest of the plans, its going to get a beefed up V6, granda diff and mdified front end, eg discs, dropped etc, but Steve and I will wait until near final mock up stages to see how the whole car sits, and we will do final adjustments and fine tuning then.

 

bigbore thats cool. the chop looks like its going to be epic. cant wait to see it done.

 

This lot of pics, just shows how I pie cut into the top on the A pillar and moved the post out until it met up with the lower portion.
It came together pretty simple.
Then I cut the door tops off and continued on with the welding.
There is some rust issue in the A pillar but I will fix that as I go along, but the angle view starts to give the car a different profile even now..

 

Now this is true Hungarian ****!

Keep chop'n and Post'n!

 

Is the Warszava related to the Pobeda?

 

Nice Warszava station wagon, I like it !

 

What information I know is that the Pobeda was produced by the Russians up to the mid-late 50's.
After that the production was done by the Polish as the Warszava.

 

Looks like it is - found this on channel4.com top ten list of cold war cars:
The Warszawa was a Polish-built Russian cast-off - and you can't get much lowlier than that in the hierarchy of motor cars. Styled along the lines of a '40s Plymouth, it was constructed to the usual brief of ruggedness over sophistication. Powered by a side-valve, 2.1-litre engine, the original design was laid down by GAZ in 1946 as a m***-market people's car to get the country moving again after the war. Badged Pobieda (Victory), most ended up as taxis, ambulances or vans. Some were even built as four-wheel-drive off-roaders, or converted to incorporate skis and sold as snowmobiles.
photo of four door sedan at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvino/1265531017/

 

Here I cut the rear C pillars out and laid them down until they came into contact with the roof and top section of the body belt line.
Then I just cut out the excess as there was no actual determined amount we would cut the rear section to.
We just went with what looked good to the eye and still flowed with the overall body lines.
With a few tack welds here and there its starting to look okay.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

That's funny, I have a rusty filmm in my undies.

 

Keep the pictures coming! Haven't been to Budapest since 1991, but it has always been my favorite city in Eastern Europe. It seemed short on custom car style, but it looks like you are working on that!

 

Great progress,keep it coming!

 

This is great. use what you have access to. Wagons are cool and I am sure there are not many custom cars there