OTREBUSY, Poland (AP) — The very first car produced in Soviet-era Poland after World War II went on display Friday near Warsaw after being found in Finland during decades of research and acquired after years of negotiations.

The big Warszawa M-20 from 1951 has the serial number 000001 which it wore when it left the FSO passenger car factory in Warsaw on November 6 of the same year, exactly 73 years ago. It is a relic of Poland’s postwar subordination to the communist-led Soviet Union.

“We are extremely proud because we are now among the few people in the world who have collected the very first vehicles of the series manufactured in their country,” said Zbigniew Mikiciuk, co-founder of the Otrebusy private museum.

The car was first given to Soviet Army Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who served as Poland’s defense minister after the war to seal the country’s dependence on Moscow. It was eventually discovered in the possession of the family of Finnish rally driver Rauno Aaltonen, although the car’s history remains unclear, Mikiciuk said.

It took more than two years of negotiations to get the vehicle from the Finnish owners, he said.

The car’s original light color has been refinished with a shade of brown that was fashionable in the 1970s and has marks of use that the museum has preserved, but it still “holds up” and is “cool » despite his age, Mikiciuk said. .

The now-defunct FSO factory researched the original model extensively in the 1970s in hopes of using it for an anniversary celebration. The company even offered a new car in exchange, but to no avail.

The FSO plant was originally built to make Italian Fiat cars in the late 1940s, but Soviet leaders in Moscow opposed ties with a Western company during the Cold War. They ordered production to be based on the Soviet Union’s Pobeda (Victory) cars, with Moscow providing the technology and production lines.

The car now joins the museum’s many historic vehicles, including an American-made 1928 Oakland brought to Poland before the war by a doctor’s family and a 1953 Buick that belonged to Poland’s communist-era prime minister, Jozef Cyrankiewicz. The former leader brought the car to Poland via the Netherlands to avoid a direct connection with the United States during the Cold War.

The museum also displays a Volvo used by Polish communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski, known for imposing martial law in 1981.

“We have been doing this for over 50 years and we do not collect cars that you can see on the street but cars that have their history, their soul and their legend,” Mikiciuk said.

The museum’s owners hope that by displaying the initials of the Warszawa M-20, they can encourage members of the public to come forward and provide more details about its history.