AS S1 and AS S2 were two twin models of

passenger car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...

s manufactured by

Towarzystwo Budowy Samochodów AS Towarzystwo Budowy Samochodów AS was an automobile and mechanical parts manufacturer based in Warsaw, that operated from 1924 to 1939 in Second Polish Republic. History The company was founded in 1924 by Warsaw-based businessman Jan Łaski, an ...

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

from 1927 to 1930. The two models differed with their

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

s and existed in 4 versions of

car body style There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location, and the era they were made in. Current styles ;Buggy (automobile), Buggy: Lightweight off-road vehicle with sparse bodywork. ;Converti ...

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

landaulet Landaulet may refer to: * Landaulet (carriage), horse-drawn carriage * Landaulet (car) A landaulet, also known as a landaulette, is a car body style where the rear passengers are covered by a convertible top. Often the driver is separated from t ...

convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...

limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment. A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a prof ...

and

panel van A panel van, also known as a blind van, car-derived van (United Kingdom) or sedan delivery (United States), is a small cargo vehicle with a passenger car chassis, typically with a single front bench seat and no side windows behind the B-pillar. ...

History

The car was designed and assembled by

, in the Warszawskie Autowarsztaty factory at 64 Złota Street. The

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

for the car was designed by Aleksander Liberman, with first prototypes being made on 4 January 1927. On 27 March 1927, the final version was manufactured in Fabryka Powozów Braci Węgrzeckich located in

Szydłowiec Szydłowiec (; Hebrew: שידלוביץ, Yiddish: שידלאָווצע; German: ''Schiedlowietz'') is a town in Szydłowiec County, Mazovian Voivodeship, south-central Poland, with 5,243 inhabitants (December 31, 2005). It is the seat of Gmina ...

, Poland. After a few months of road tests, the car had been allowed to be sold. It was manufactured in 4

car body styles Governments and private organizations have developed car classification schemes that are used for various purposes including regulation, description, and categorization of cars. The International Standard ISO 3833-1977 ''Road vehicles – Type ...

and

. The taxi landaulet version was the most popular, having around 100 cars being made, while the other version had around 50 cars made for each one. The customers could have also ordered only the chassis, paying a lower price. The car was manufactured in 2 versions, with different

s: S1 and S2. S1 used engine manufactured by

Chapuis-Dornier Chapuis-Dornier was a French manufacturer of proprietary engines for automobiles from 1904 to 1928 in Puteaux near Paris. Between 1919 and 1921 it displayed a prototype automobile, but it was never volume produced.Linz, Schrader: ''Die große Automo ...

while S2, by CIME. The first models of the car also used the engine made by

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...

. All engines, as well as the

gearbox Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), differe ...

were imported from

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The rest of the elements of the car were manufactured in Poland. The car manufacturing company was awarded the silver medal for its AS cars at the 1929

Polish General Exhibition Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

. Its cars also arouse interest at the exhibition. AS was mostly praised for its noiseless, non-resistive, and precise way of closing its doors. The car stopped being manufactured in 1930, due to the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. There were around 150 AS cars manufactured. They were made in 3 series, the first two countings respectively 60 and 80 cars. The third series was planned to count 100 cars, however, only a small number of cars that series has been manufactured. There is no AS car left. It is known that one of the cars, has been used in the barricade at the

Wilcza Street Wilcza (lit. ''Wolf Street'') is a street in Warsaw's city centre. It links Koszykowa Street in the south-eastern part of the borough with the Three Crosses Square at the Royal Route. Initially, at least since 14th century, the street was just ...

, during the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...

in 1944. One AS car, and probably the last of that model to survive the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, was used as a taxi in Warsaw, until the first half of the 1950s.

Specifications

The car was available in two versions with different

s: S1 and S2. AS S1 had

straight-four A straight-four engine (also called an inline-four) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The vast majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout (with the e ...

flathead

with capacity of 990 cm³ and 17 KM power. The AS S2 had a straight-four

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

CIME engine with the capacity of 1203 cm³ 24 KM power. The car was manufactured in 4

and

References

{{reflist 1920s cars 1930s cars Cars introduced in 1927 Cars of Poland Convertibles Limousines Vans Taxi vehicles