I Bought a Polski Fiat. I Love It
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- čas přidán 23. 09. 2023
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I think this winter you should do a donut contest in a snow or ice covered parking lot. To see which of your fleet is the most fun on slick roads. Avoiding salt of course.
Hey! I'm from Bielsko-Biała - the town in Poland that manufactured these cars. My dad worked on an assembly line for these cars for 20 years. We also used to own a fiat parts store, and had at least 4 or 5 of the 126p cars. If you need anything (either some advice/troubleshooting, or parts mailed to you) please let me know.
where "struttura d'urto" came from? if is bumper the translation is "paraurti"
They used to put hayabusa engines in Poland into those. These nuggets spinned very nice.
I hope all that money on the stove was to represent how overpriced this crap is.
The editing tricks, the flow, the compacted history, the jokes, this is high class content
The references to Garbage Time
Absolutely agree. This video is excellent.
The jokes, in some sense shouldn't be there. This car is kind of a joke to Americans, but imagine being a communist in Poland and then being able to get this car. Only someone who has never had to walk 2 miles to take a bus to a factory job where you are on your feet all day could ever not appreciate this car. Instead of leaving your house an hour and a half early to make sure you are at work on time, you can leave 20 minutes early and arrive dry and not tired.
@@tarstarkuszthat’s unfair. I appreciated the jokes for what they were: true appreciation. None were nasty or pointed, and it’s clear that Peter really loves this car. Jokes can just be jokes.
2 day old comment on a video that I just received notice on. Do do do do do.
"Maluch", as he is commonly called in Poland, was able to transport a family of 4 with 2 children on a 3-week camping trip. As well as 12 adults from the party at the fire station. I know because I had one in my family :)
there is nothing that wouldn't fit into a maluch
it's bigger on the inside
12?!
when communist ruled Poland, in the country were a big deficit in everything. It was something similar to these days north korea. Only some could afford a car, and if there was a party, where one person had a "maluch", everybody wanted to drive home, instead of taking a bus, because it was way worse. @@Qoobon_
@@Qoobon_I saw 8 people, maybe 12 smaller is possible. 😅
ITS TONY KOWALSKI!!! I’ve never seen Tony so clean and happy before
I seriously just came from that channel 😭 I can't escape him
It's a properly clean nugget! With no go-faster rust!
He's not Tony...
BUT! He IS Tony's American cousin!
This might seem weird but I swear I recognise you from somewhere, twitter maybe?
@@robots-FTW yea, it’s me. A trans woman on Twitter from a year ago, CultOfHoodies, or Molly, I’m still here
My dad (a big, heavy lifter athlete) used to drive a Maluch in the 90s. One time he got into an accident and the car flipped on its roof, he got out of the car, flipped it over and kept driving. This car was indestructible and it’s still a huge part of polish culture!
Yeah, our version of Nokia 3310 😁
I’m glad you’re dad wasn’t injured 👍
every nation seems to have stories of old things being fixed with stockings
it's not even polish
@@StanleyKubick1 it was licenced to be produced in Poland, and was produced in Polish factories for Polish use since westerners were too, well, wealthy to drive such a piece of shit lmao well not just Poland, Czechoslovakia considered it legendary too.
This may be difficult for some people to understand, but my parents told me that when they were children, the whole family traveled in a Fiat 126p from Poland to Bulgaria. there were 5 people traveling in a Fiat 126p for almost 2,000 kilometers on holiday to Bulgaria.
LAWS OF PHYSICS left the room
@@jacekm4707 Establishing a record of how many people can fit into a Maluch was a thing in Poland at some point in time. I think 17 girl dancers is the standing record. My personal experience - 7.
@@DrittAdrAtta eee no. It couldnt ride 2000km without shitting itself to death
My Polish uncle has driven a 126p with 7 colleagues on board for work in czechoslovakia, but to achieve this all seats were removed. Still cant imagine how 8 adult men were able to be in this car at once.
There were also trailers , a huge roofbox and even a caravan offered for the 126 - though a 125 or a Polonez was a better choice for.
A trabant, a Lada, a Polsky Fiat, Yugo... All that is missing is a Skoda 120, A Wartburg 353 and you got my childhood car collection all done!
Renault Lecar
Didnt you have a Dacia? The one based on a Renault 12 or smthing? :D
A 353 would complete the channel, one of the best sounding two stroke cars
and then the Next Level: an Old Barkas or Multicar :D
Or an Renault R4 for a more western route that's still would be alien for americans
I desperately want a Wartburg
One more correction: "małolitrażowy" is not "small" but "small engined". So FSM in Tychy was the "factory of small engined cars"❤
It was kinda clarified already in the video, as the text appears at 2:39; "More accurately: Small _Displacment_ Car Factory (literary: Factory for Cars Small in Liters)".
But the spelling is "małolitrażowy" ;)
psujesz zabawę
@@ZosiaSamosiaOo dziękuję! Didn't see it, thank you for pointing it out!
FSM Tychy it was factory nr 2. First 126p's was build in Bielsko-Biała FSM nr 1 in 1972.
There are many jokes about Maluch in Poland, but I think this one is the best:
A guy walking down the street notices Maluch in the tree, comes closer and asks the driver:
- What happened?
- I knew he was small, obviously he had no acceleration, but I had no idea he was afraid of dogs.
What is the meaning of "maluch"
@@sahantharaka9295 “Maluch” can literally be translated as something small. It is mainly used to describe small, several-year-old children, but generally anything that is small can be described with this word.
I'm Polish and this car is an absolute legend here, everyone here who was around in 80/90 has family stories and memories revoling around those cars, most often "first family vacation when 5 +
luggage would fit in that car and make a 200 miles trip to seaside or your Dad fixing the car on the side of the road using moms stockings to raplace the V belt :)
dokładnie, nasz wyjazd nad morze odbywał sie z klapą silnika uchyloną i przytrzymaną patykiem bo sie silnik grzał ;)
@@Yano83 nosz kur$%#, urwaliście druta od klapy?!
uczyłem się nim jeździć jako dzieciak (ojciec kupił za 300zl od rodziny bo to w 2010 było haha) ale jeśli mowa o opowieściach z malucha to moi dziadkowie dachowali nim w drodze nad morze (auto pełne ludzi i toreb) i nikt nie miał nawet złamania jakimś cudem xD
Ja zdawałem na takim na prawo jazdy 😀
Tak samo xD Tylko ze w moim przypadko jechalem do tarnobrzegu
The crossover we didn't know we wanted, but now absolutely need: DankPods/Garbage Time and Aging Wheels.
YES WE DO
too bad the pacific ocean separates them
Imagine the dumb shit they'll do to Tony.
@@TheOmegaRiddlerOMG! YES just reading this makes me imagine all the shit they'll do to poor tony and it makes me laugh so much
I was waiting for this comment 😂!
I'm Polish and that was my first car, I got that as a gift from my grandad when I was 20. It literally opened the world for me, well maybe not the world, but whole mideastern Europe. Suprisingly, it could fit 4 people with luggage :) And I could make most of maintenance and repairing by myself, it was constructed very simply. Thank you for that vlog and resembling my happy days!
polska górom
@@zgrek123 gurom*
This is too cute. Thanks for sharing:)
This car had many nicknames in Poland. The most popular was "Maluch", which means toddler, but there was also "Kaszlak", which meant a person/thing that coughs.
yeah, something like "cougher" :)
Kaszlak does not come from coughing but from kasza (porridge), i.e. the food the baby is eating between breast milk and solid foods. So it's still about a toddler.
In Hungary we called them "Kispolszki" literally meaning Little Polski, or sometimes "Kispók", meaning little spider. :)
@@berlineczka I have just asked few friends of mine and none of them have heard this. Everyone confirmed the cough version.
@@berlineczka "Kaszlak" refers to the sound it did when you turned the engine on.
I lived in India when I was a kid. My dad imported the first Polski Fiat 126p to India/Callcutta in 1978. It was the fastest car on the street lights then. I loved it :) We traveled all over India with our 4 people family then. It was a sensation!
And now you have Tata Nano for.
@@HesseJamez Sorry to dissapoint you. I drive a Jaguar. My 8th in the last 25 years :)
Yea Jaguar, tata same thing same manufacturer😝 @@JakubFox-gk6pv.
he said that there is NO SPACE FOR GROCERIES(!)
while here in Poland the whole family could travel to the seaside with all their luggage in this car
@@JakubFox-gk6pvin India?
I was in Poland for Vacation in 1999 and these things were everywhere. When they pass you going full throttle, they sound like a german ww2 divebomber, its hilarious! 🙂
You can still find some on the streets actually, and they still sound like a Russian suicide drone
I'm polish and seeing one is a rarity these days. Tho I know a guy who owns two of them. For nostalgia sake i guess. @@whiteobama3032
@@whiteobama3032 Exactly here in poland i see 2 of them a day sometimes even more
they are still on the roads, but not as much and they sound beautifully, i see, like 3 a day or more!
@@tiso6s523 where do you live? I see one few times a year maybe.
I'm British, now retired, and have owned several Morris Minors ... 2-door, 4-door, and Travellers. I went to Poland in a Morris Minor in 1994, and have been here until this day. I've owned two 'Maluchs'. The first was cheap because of a light front-end collision. I sorted it out and fully rebuilt the engine.
The second was a later version in good condition. My partner and I travelled to the Netherlands and back from Warsaw (about 1100km one way) in each . I well remember people in Polish cars madly waving at us as they passed us on the ring road around Utrecht. No problems at all, other than some clutch slippage on German hills because of the weight of all the stuff we had bought in the Netherlands. I put recllning seats from a SAAB in the later Maluch. To do that, I had to remove the plastic storage pockets from the doors.
I lived in a Polish forest for twenty-one years and spent six years teaching English in the closest town and surrounding villages. Modus operandi was a Maluch. Temperatures of anything down to minus 20C (that was typical in deep winter in Poland back in the day) ... no problem. 33C in summer? No problem. I never had a breakdown with either Maluch.
So many fond memories. Glorious days!
Cheers!
I had a Skoda 105 that I pulled parts out of that had Saab seats in it. Sadly rats had gotten into them. I suppose the old Saab seats were good, cheap and easy to modify into anything.
Your memories were delightful to read. Thank you for your work here, and wishing all the best from Poland!
You have no idea how many millions of people have nice memories from their youth related to this car. You are driving the true history of Poland :)
Look it's tiny!!!!
This man is slowly turning more and more into DankPods and I'm here for it
The Nugget!
too bad it’s not Shrek green
I'm dreaming of a collab
He's been messing around with weird old cars before DankPods' car channel even started
Garbage Time is a crazy austrailian version of Aging Wheels lmao
I love Tony and Garbage Time - so happy that you are giving this machine some well deserved time in the spotlight.
Not terrible and inaccurate and with patronising comments using the word "sweetie" when called out on it, you mean? ;) @@notfiveo
That voice is familiar. Does he play drums and own a snake?
@@Talbonator2000 “Oh my PKCELL!”
Found the nugget in the comments
I know it there's gonna be a dankpod somewhere in the comments
I almost cried when I heard the engine (10:21 here), it's the sound of my childhood. My family owned 3 of those, one after another, and yes, we used to go on vacation with it (family of four), with a little help of a roof rack ;) I remember the excitement when one time we went 115km/h (downhill, of course!). And yes, there was no rear seatbelts and me and my sister did not have child seats either :) Good thing my dad was a good driver :)
The sound is about half of the 126's appeal for me. It turns any boring drive to the shops into a big drama...
W 1992 byliśmy Maluchem z przyszłym mężem w Wiedniu. Mąż ma 197 😅do dziś nie wiem jakim cudem się zmieścił !
Fun fact: in Hungary we call these "Kispolszki" (Little Polski), while it's big brother, the 125p was the "Nagypolszki" (Big Polski)
Down south in Serbia we call them "peglica" (tiny clothes iron)
Thats Funny.😂
In Poland 125 was called "Duży Fiat" (Big Fiat).
its
In poland we call the 126p Mały fiat (small fiat) or maluch (baby *i dont know how to translate it well*)
And the 125p we call duży fait (big fiat)
Thanks to DankPods my first thought when I saw the thumbnail was TONY!
Same!
Force-feed it booze!
I can smell Tony all the way from Australia
Same i want a tony
In Poland it was called Cougher because of specific engine sound.
True, respect for preparing the material as well as multiple attemps to pronounce Polish words! BTW, another popular name for this sweetie was "kaszlak", wchich translates into "cougher", that was due to the sound it gave off while starting;) Greetings from Bydgoszcz;)
Congrats with Your Maluch: Handful of useful tips:
- Starter cable will eventually snap, take old broom stick, put to neutral and turn ignition on. Open the engine compartment and there is just enough space to trigger starter with the stick in there. Some kept on doing this for years...:>
- In summer your engine will overheat, take discarded piece of the broomstick and use it as a wedge to keep the engine bay open by a few inches, some say it was not working and you disturb airflow - was for me no doubt.
- Your overhead lining will eventually collapse on your head. Hope you still have remaining piece of that broomstick? Wedge it near B pillars across the sides and it shall keep headliner happy in a good shape.
- Some electric component will break, do not bother checking bulbs or devices just yet, open front and give a good shake to a "floating connectors" 99% - instant fix!
- Get ignition coil capacitor as a spare asap, unless you want to go back home 15mph max occasionally pushing over the hill with one cylinder only. Change takes few seconds and fixes Maluch to be as good as new!
Hope it helps with your journey - I got 3 of those and totaled one :) good luck!
For a moment, I thought every tip was going to involve broomsticks.
His car is a second-gen FL model. No starter cable, should be standard electric start on his...?
Where can I get an aftermarket broomstick?
There is 2 important piece of advise missing
1. broom also will come handy when carburetor idle jet clogs up, you can pull one hair from the broom and it makes perfect tool to plunge the jet
2. It's highly recommended to keep pair of stockings in the car, so if alternator belt snaps, it can be easily fixed.
At least, communism forced people to be creative.
Great video Rob!
Spirit Halloween. 😁@@Taydrum
fantastic attempts at pronouncing polish words. good job Robert. just so you know the Maluch is a very safe car, the crumple zone ends at the engine!
One should only drive them in reverse then! ;)
I like this... I forgot for a second and was like "How did they do that so well? Why did they do that so well? I mean wait he showed the engine right? What was in there.... Wait...."
crumple zones are codswallop. if a car ends up barreling headfirst into a stationary object with no time to slow down, the driver has made a series of mistakes of judgement to get it there. Temper your ego, and drive like an adult, and you will never have reason to regret driving a car with poor crash safety. This coming from a guy who has crashed a few cars myself; none of those crashes happened on public roads with traffic around, because there's a time to drive like Senna and there's a time to drive like Nana.
Another nickname for Maluch is "Kaszlak", which means cougher. Its because when you start the engine, it sounds like a cough of an old smoker. 😄
Great car, lots of memories.
-What is the max speed for a maluch?
-Depends on the tow truck pulling it.
-How to double maluch's value?
-Just fill the gas tank.
-Is it true that maluch accelerates to 100km/h in 10 seconds?
-Yes, but you need to start counting at 95km/h.
-Say what you want, Fiat126p is a very safe car, its crumple zone ends right on the engine.
-Why the rear window in a maluch has a heater?
-So you won't get a frostbite pushing the car everywhere in winter.
Man, this thing is such an icon in Poland. Almost everyone here can tell you what maluch they had, in what color, with what engine and around million incredible stories connected to this car
But they made a lot fewer of those than there are people in Poland. How did everyone have one?
@@SianaGearz because it was like a family shared car. You could have one for an household and all 4/5 or more people in household were driving and maintaining this. Or if a family didn't had one they probably were borrowing one from a friend. Basically if you wanted a car this was one of the most popular options. There were other cars like syrenka (siren) or warszawa (warsaw) later there was polonez and maybe you would see a trabant or lada here and there
In Italy this car was common but could never reach cult status, it will always be overshadowed by its historic "grandma", the Fiat 500.
It's a bit like the 2CV and the Dyane for Citroen: the 2CV is celebrated as an icon, while the Dyane (which I like) only has a niche following.
@@SianaGearz So what? Every car has at least 3-4 owners during its lifetime. Fiat 126p was produced 1973-2000. Some "rich" man bought one when it was new. After 7-10 years sold it to somebody else. And so on. EVERY car went its way from being a new and shiny, 15.000 Polish zlotys to a piece of junk for 300 zlotys, first car for young people. Every Polish family had their Polish Fiat 126p. If it wasn't you or your father, then it was your borther, uncle or grandfather.
even tho its small people said they could fit alot inside of that car
With regard to the wheel covers. They should be attached with only 3 of the 4 wheel bolts. The bolt hole nearest the valve should have a wider hole. The idea is you can mount the wheel with one bolt, fit the covers and then add the remaining bolts. If you can't access the valves, then either the cover has been fitted incorrectly or somebody fitted valves that are too short. Hope this helps!
Correct. I see one of the vent holes is wider to accommodate the valve stem.
I was looking for this comment. You are right.
Probably they are the straight ones and not the 90° ones.
Fiat Panda’s made in Italy and later in Poland had these wheel trims. As explained elsewhere you can remove three wheel bolts and remove the trim. This was to discourage theft of wheel trims I believe.
Mate, and this is coming from a pole, I really admire your pronunciation of our words!
I know ours is a hard language and massive respect for learning to say the words so well.
Loved the video, loved your vibe, keep it up mate!
The very few cars let you start them in the winter by pushing by yourself (running in the open driver's door) and then jumping in and realease the clutch on the 1st/2nd gear when car is still rolling to start the engine. I practiced it quite often :)
As a native polish guy it kind of makes me proud that Dankpods and you now own the Maluch
It's the Tony
@matejduchaj9828 not just a Tony, but an idiot named Tony
It’s “An Car” lol
This thing is called Peglica in Serbia.Meaning little iron.
the guest appearance of garbage time for a half of a second brightened my day, glad to see you appreicating the other nugget channels
I think they're subscribed to each other's Patreons!
@@joshuanishanthchristian5217I spotted Wade in the chat on Robert's air-conditioned bus livestream. 😁
TONY
We many still running around in Cuba we call it polaquito means tiny Poland
Ahh yes, a slight incline. Tony's natural enemy.
Wade @ 'Dankpods'/'Garbage Time'/'The Drum Thing' etc etc (funny Auzzie CZcamsr) has one of these, and LOVES IT! 👍🤣🤣
😎🇬🇧
I can imagine that in the apocalypse this will be the one car that you can fix completely with any mechanic knowlege.
Those perfectly synchronized shifts in the drag-off between Maluch and Trabant are genuinely SO satisfying
That column shift work was nothing to scoff at, looked pretty smooth to me. 😎
The only thing is the wrong word for extra tyre, which in italian is "ruota di scorta" or "ruotino"
@@andrefixaI think he used as a joke. In my 500 I sure don't rely on the ruota di scorta (the ruotino is the smallest one) 🤣
As a Pole I can say that you done best pronanunce of "Fabryka Samochodów Małolitrazowych" ❤
I have to say I am impressed as well :D
I'm Dutch, so I'm not in a position to judge anyone. I like the Polish language, but omg, bardzo trudne! But am I right that the Ł wasn't that great, more of an L instead of a W? What did impress me, though, was the 'ch' sound in samochódow, a very difficult sound for most English speakers.
@@jmvjeroen I don't think the Dutch should address other people on their pronunciation of words.
English here. My dad bought two Fiat 126s and we put the best bits on one, throwing the rest away. The 126 was my first, and most loved, car. RUF 889R, I'll always miss you
I'm Polish and that was my first car. I have many nice memories associated with this car. Easy to repair, as a young man I could repair many things myself with basic tools. Unfortunately, the annual insurance was more expensive than the value of the car. The car could not be deregistered and left as a sentimental piece in the garage - it was a deliberate policy of the European Union to buy new cars, mainly German ones.
I love that from coast-to-coast, Americans can be united as a people by the fact that we all know and use the *exact* same car wash with the large kachunk-kachunk knob and the spray wand and foam broom. (And the fact that another Patreon supporter told me that this is a design by one company who has seemingly sold it *everywhere* and captured that whole market)
Also this fun little baby car makes me happy and we're glad it makes you happy, too, Robert! 👍😁👍
Interesting, I did not know about that.
Oddly, I live in northern Virginia just outside of Washington. This area consists of four counties with a population of 3.3 million people. I've never seen one of these car washes anywhere in this area. There might be some somewhere, but I've never seen one.
@@LeeBv9983I also live in NoVa, and this is the thing that shocked me the most. As the owner of two aging, leaky convertibles, it's also a persistent annoyance. It's a 45 minute drive to the nearest self service car wash for me. Like, why? Do people here not wash their cars?
the wondrous innovation and consumer choice of Capitalism
What's that? Deviant realizing that a system is universal across the country? What do we bet they're all keyed alike? (Love this crossover)
Speaking of silly little death traps, there was a joke in Poland that the Maluch’s crumple zone was the same as a Mercedes, it ended at the rear of the engine compartment. ;-)
My first car was a Fiat126. I loved it as a 17 year old as it gave me freedom. It didn't go, and it didn't stop either but it was incredible fun. Thanks for reminding me of my great memories.
Cheers from Poland, glad you liked it, I have a very found memory of riding one of those as a kid as one of my grandfathers had Mały (small) Fiat, and the second one owned a Duży (big) Fiat - what I liked the most about the second one was the speedometer - not in form of the clock, but rather a horizontal line.
I'm Polish and I've got to say I am laughing really hard right now. Great video! And you did very well with FSM ;)
POLSKA GUROM
I DOUEM
polska
POLSKA GUROM, POLSKA ON TOP
pozdro
I am Polish and I have learned to drive and passed my driving license on one of those in 1996. My uncle owned one and they were indeed very popular back in the day. After year 2000, they quickly became extinct because people in Poland were finally able to switch to real cars, so they would massively and with contempt get rid of this crap. Apart from "maluch", it was also called "kaszlak" (a cougher) because of sound it produced when starting the engine.
This was designed as a small city car, but in socialist Poland it was used as a family car and travelled long distances, fully loaded with luggage, because most people could not afford anything else. As my mom said - it's better to ride uncomfortably, than comfortably walk.
The reason why it was chosen to produce in Poland was economical - there were better options for a popular vehicle, but FIAT was the only producer to allow export and accept ready cars and parts as payment. It was crucial, because the socialist currency was worth sh*t on international markets and the country badly needed real money (like dollars, francs or marks) to buy all stuff which was not available locally or from Soviet "brothers".
The car looks quite nice and friendly, but make no mistake - it's a brutal bastard and requires skills to drive. No safety, no luggage space, no real front lights, no power, no torque, no braking, no window defrosting and just as much room inside to smile. There were countless jokes about it, one of them about safety belts - never forget to unfasten, otherwise you may accidentally take the car inside with you, without noticing.
I forgot about "kaszlak" :D
Because of it lightness and rear wheel drive it was also great car to learn drifting :)
@@kuchar85ster Yeah, Robert didn't even mention it being a sports car.
We visited Krakow 1996 with our graduation Class and we saw several times the most unique Feature of a the Fiat Polski: It could alter the reality of roads. A four lane Intersection became a eight lane Intersection. Seeing with awe as 5 Fiat Polski drive around the turn in an Intersection with only 2 lanes in each direction without Crash is a very found memory. And they flow around the bigger western cars easily.
Thank you for this comment :))
Such a fun little car. My dad's family drove from mountains to the see in Poland (that's about 1000km one way) for camping, they were 5 people in this car in total + the bags. It still baffles me how that was possible. They all talk about it with a smile on their face though ^^'
Great video!
Just a week ago I took an awesome photo of my parents in law parking lot. Beautiful Maluch in metallic blue parked just right next to a Tesla. This is diversity, people!
You are gonna get a lot of new Polish subs, I assure you. For some reason we love seeing westerners enjoy what was arguably “if communism was a car” - the car.
Also I was thoroughly impressed with your pronunciation of “fabryka samochodów małolitrażowych”. How many takes did it need? 😂
Polish phonetics are pleasantly consistent if you're used to English, but you guy do put together a deusy of a word every once in a while
@@anthonyhayes1267 Hey, it's only two consonant clusters this time lol
("br" and "tr")
The so called "communist car" was actually an Italian Fiat, made in license, like russian Lada was.
@@mskiptr Polish language has many worse consonant clusters like "Szczecin" or "Wrzeszcz"😄
@@HesseJamezPronounced as "Shch-eh-cheen" and "V-zh-eh-shch"
My grandpa drove a family of 4 (my mom and aunt) from Poland to Greece and back in that thing. (I know it, because she tells me that story every time i ask to turn on the AC.)
Later my dad bought a bright orange one, and drove my mom to their wedding.
seems like most polish people have some sort of story connected with this car. Crazy how a machine can be so meaningfull to so many people
I'm over 40, and yet I have vivid memories of my father driving out family of 4 from Poland to Greece in that car. I was the smallest and I slept above the backseats - on the shelf next to the back window - it was quite comfortable.
I saw once Maluch with "AC". It was just a regular desktop fan. I have no idea how the owner made it work.
yeah my parents made it to Crimea in that thing LOL
It is meaningful cause it was 1 of 5 available cars on market. All 5 of them was overaged when invented.
the way every Pole has a story in their family about driving for a vacation in Greece fully packed in that car
Hi @agingwheels, great video, brings back memories.
Well, your particular car is a late model, quite modern compared to the early models. Earlier models had different wheels, far fewer buttons, no emergency lights. But the biggest difference was the fact that the starter was engaged manually, with a lever next to the choke lever (where you have the "heater valve", at 10:47), that pulled a wire connected to a little thingie on the side of the starter motor that would engage the starter (the sound this made is forever etched in my memory). That wire was notorious for stretching, and after some time it needed to be replaced. A workaround used by a lot of people (including myself) was to put ignition on, have gear at neutral, and then open the engine cover and push this thingie with a stick.
Indeed, no seat belts in the back.
It was registered for four passengers, but this was commonly ignored (as many people mentioned in the comments). My personal record is five burly men and a toilet bowl. I quickly add that the bowl was new and unused.
Reportedly, this car was the only one that was officially blessed by the Vatican, since it was the only car in the world in which it was physically impossible to lose virginity on the back seat.
Fantastic video, brings back memories of my childhood. We used to go for holidays in this thing! A tent, bag of clothes, some camping stuff, and me in the back seat. And my parents of course.
Since I know that Wade is a huge fan of yours, I LOVED the fact that Tony had a cameo in this video! Such a well-done video!
Lmao I was shocked too😂
lol i think were all in the same boat
What a nugget. It's like Tony's twin brother.
HAHA Love it !! im Polish and i drove polski maluch as a kid with my parents, this was amazing, glad u like it. Polski Maluchj is part of our culture and memories. Great episode, greetings from Poland
Such a nice video to watch! Im Polish and Fiat 126p was my first car after I passed my driving licence! You could buy parts in junkyard and fix it for super low cost! Even replace front window was super easy! just push window with you feet, put string inside rubber and new window and by puling string window was placed itself in rubber ;)
Now i know what the dankpods "tony" was supposed to look like..
No, no. You have it backwards. His is definitely what they're supposed to look like. My Maluch would unrecognizable in Cuba.
@@agingwheelsI truly home you have a "James" to help you keep that little Niki running!
11:45 As a proud '88 Fiat Uno owner, I can explain. Those panels are modular, so you could have them with more, fewer, or different gauges, depending on the trim level. To avoid leaving a blank space, Fiat got very creative with labels. The tire pressure is a classic, but some cars here in Brazil have, instead of a rev counter, a reminder label for the seatbelts, or even a full analogic clock.
Caramba, um brasileiro por aqui? e uneiro ainda?? essa eu n esperava
My old peugeot 205 also has a clock in place of a rev counter, pretty common for the cheaper cars even early 2000's
😂 Mine has the seatbelt warning ⚠️
A clock? You lucky bastards! My Austin Allegro had what looked like a compass where the revcounter was on the sportier models. But compared to the Fiat 126 an Austin Allegro was a car with luxurious ride and powerful engine 😅
The Uno was great, had 2 mark 2 Unos, a 1.4 injected and a 1.1 carb Fire engine. They should've kept importing it here in Italy.
As someone who grew up with the car I can say that yes - The rear seats did not have seatbelts - as seatbelts themselves were not a legal requirement in Poland until much later.
The roof window was a modification that came out much later alongside the openable rear windows and car alarm/unlocking system. It wasn't a factory-made model per se, it was a post-factory modification that became very popular. The most advanced ones would have blue-tinted blinkers and black-tinted rear windows too, believe it or not.
I also remember my grandma starting the car with a broom somehow. I couldn't tell you what that was about exactly, but something wasn't working in terms of starting up the engine, but it was such a simple engine that a broomstick would bypass the issue. No, I am not joking.
A family on average would wait 4 years to get one of these after ordering.
Unless my mother lied to me - I believe the car can do more than 120km/h, though it's very scary (at least as a kid) to go that fast in such a tiny frame, as experienced first-hand when going at 110km/h on a highway. Couple of additional fun facts. When idling - You could feel the engine shaking (due to a 2-cylinder engine on... literally just springs) an entire car. And then heat produced by the engine could be felt on rear seats.
Its such a classic, that one was put into our office. On 4th floor. Inside the open space. Its an instant sensation.
Regarding the heating, there was a common joke:
Why does the maluch have a heated rear window?
So your hands wouldn't get cold when you were pusing it
Hey! I thought that joke was for the Yugo. 😉😉
In Germany we used that joke with the beetle...
@@HerrHerbertHase Also the Trabant.
Many cheap cars have the same jokes.
That's because they are cheap, and making up new jokes is worth more than they are, unless you fill the tank up.
@@samuelayers3429 In the UK that joke was reserved for Lada and Skoda. Which doesn't make any sense because you wouldn't push either of those with the rear glass.
My favourite saying about the Maluch is that the front-end crumple zone ends right at the engine, just like in a Mercedes!
Except a Mercedes would be front-engined, the Maluch is rear-engined, so the "crumple zone" includes the entire passenger compartment.
My favourite was always how do you double the value of the Kaszlak (cougher, the less nice nickname)
Fill it with petroleum
I've been born in 1999 in Poland and remember seeing this car everywhere despite that being the moments before the dusk of its prominence, and it still is iconic in the eyes of everyone I know, to the point that if somebody points one out on the street, everybody will turn to look, even the people who absolutely don't care about cars (yours truly included in that number).
I'm polish and u guys don't understand this car gives us so much memory. We love "maluch".
For those who didn't catch the joke "Struttura d'urto" is Italian for impact-absorbing structure. The spare tire is "ruota di scorta".
My aunt in Italy had a 126 for a while. I'm 6'0 tall and fit nicely in the back seat.....mostly because she had removed the front passenger seat. My sister also lived in Italy and, omg, the dashboard in your Polski Fiat is nearly identical to the one in her first-generation basest of the basest Fiat Uno 3-door 900cc !
I did not catch the joke, and appreciate your comment!
There was and old joke about Maluch, stating that it was as safe in a crash as any modern car - after all, it too had a crumple zone ending in the engine bay.
son venuto a spiegare proprio questo!
That's funny@@MikrySoft
The ones like in the video were manufactured from 1985 to 1994, and this version was just called FL (face lift). And although all the changes (dashboard, interior, bumpers, all the black plastic parts of the bodywork, wheel covers) were designed in Poland, I always believed they were modeled after 1983 Uno.
We went to Poland in 91 or 92(can't remember exactly, i was like 9yo).
It was a blazing hot, and the bad asphalt on the roads was melting, and our Audi 100 made tire tracks on the road. The 6 yo Audi was nothing special where Im from, but the poles looked at it like it was a Ferrari almost.
I remember the polski fiats driving around with their rear hatch half open just to keep the engine from overheating.
If you haven't visited Poland since then, you should. You wouldn't recognize the country it was 30 years ago. Roads are flat like table, you would see a lot of expensive cars and fenced villas even in smaller cities and villages, not mentioning the biggest cities like Warsaw, Krakow or Wroclaw, with great and punctual public transport, clean environment, beautiful nature and welcoming people.
@@PureEvil92gated communities aren't something great though
Sounds much better than the USA is now !
@@PureEvil92
@@PureEvil92 I have been there a couple of times in the last years, Warsaw twice, and also Turek and Bydgoszcz. I like it very much, and it has changed a lot since then. Warzaw is very nice in the summer, and they have rebuilt the old town very beautiful!
@@PureEvil92 Still plenty of very poor roads around. I have been visiting Poland every year since 1997
Thank you for this video! It made me smile so many times. My dad still has one of those in his garage in Poland. No, my husband thinks they are cute so he got me a fully electrical Fiat 500 for my birthday last year (not the same thing, but my hubby is American and he thinks both are adorable). So yeah, these things are cute. Such a great video! Thank you again:)
Tom Hanks got a custom one as a gift from Polish fans few years back. This was a part of a charity event to raise money for a local children hospital in Bielsko-Biala. Tom matched the donations and was gofted the car.
It's also a surprisingly safe car! The designers were truly ahead of their time, because in an accident the crumple zone is completely in front of the engine!
I love how the horse power goes up by one which is pathetic since one horse outputs fifteen horse power🤣🤣🤣
@@SaraMorgan-ym6uethe YT channel "Donut" recently disproved this but the video on it is really interesting! I reccommend it!
As a Polish citizen age 46 I must say, you will be happy with this car. Don't change it, just enjoy your Sunday ride o whatever you want to do with it 😃
Glad I found your channel. You're by far the funniest standing-next-to-a-car-youtuber I know! ❤
Nun dich hätte ich hier nich erwartet, obwohl nach ein bisschen nachdenken macht es schon sinn... liebst ja immerhin deinen fifi
My family had this car and I still consider it iconic. I have never seen before a family of 3-4 people go on vacation in this car, packing everything they need into the car (or onto the car). This car was indestructible and any repairs could be done by anyone. My Mom repaired this car herself. I still remember the front, triangular window that served as "air conditioning". :)
I think you should contact the nearest Polish embassy to collect your honorary citizenship for this purchase, as it is customary for every foreign buyer of a 126p
Your pronunciation of FSM in full was masterful. Polish is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, but as far as I could tell (from my own experiments with Polish) you nailed it.
He did a twofer: he nailed it AND said it with what we in Poland would easily recognise as "US accent" ;)
Not quite, especially with "fabreeka", but oddly he gets better the further in he goes.
Fah-BRICK-ah Sam-oh-HOD-oov Ma-wo-leet-rah-ŻOH-vih
where Ż is the sound of the s in pleasure or measure or the g in genre (depending on your accent).
Try to say Grzegorz Brzeczyszykiewicz
Maybe you missed it, but he also had a go at plural- said ‘Maluchy’ at one point (ch is pronounced as h, the c does nothing, but the y ending is the plural.
@@rafaljankowski2807
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody ?
YOU. ARE. BRILLIANT!
Please keep it going!
Aww memories. My mom's first car was a maluch, I was in "grade zero" (about 6 years old). This tiny car will always have a special place in my and as well as many other Poles' hearts.
I have nothing but respect for those tiny little things that did exactly what they were supposed to do, for an honest price. The fact that so many are still alive to this day when 70 000$ monstrosities sold 8 years ago are already at the junkyard tells me everything I need to know. 💙 Thanks for sharing.
Truth
these things broke every week, but they were easier to fix than modern cars and everyone could do it themselves
I'm sorry to disappoint but they were not high quality cars and they broke down all the time. There are stories of them having issues right after driving out of the dealership but people really had no other choice back then, it was either this car or no car. But some are still working till this day because they were very easy to fix, even by yourself.
@@januszkurahenowski2860 This were repairable by design, modern cars are un-repairable, also by design.
It doesn't matter how reliable it is if, when it breaks (and it will), your only choice is to go back to the manufacturer, if they support it.
I inherited my after grandpa died. 40+ years of use, ranging from standard city drive to pulling a trailer full of onion. Still works very well, and if anything breaks, I know I'll be able to bix it with a stick and duct tape.
I love the dankpods reference, at 3:35.
great video. thank you for giving me smiles
I enjoyed riding these when i was a kid, it was fun. At times, I still do pass these by on the road, though a bit less common and just as yours, they're the ones that are left because they're in good shape. Also near me there's an annual festival of Maluchs, where they gather together and it's such an adorable view 😊
"American cloaking device" Jesus christ I died.
I missed those kinds of jokes lol
My parents had one when I was little (late 80s), although they were quite popular as a "first car" right up until like 2004-5ish down here. They are remembered quite fondly but I'm sure most of us are happy its days are behind us.
It was a superb vehicle for the time. Eastern Europe was recovering from war under CCCP, people literally had nothing. A car like this was a luxury vehicle like a Mercedes or BMW today.
I remember in the 90's seeing a lot of them driving heavy loaded, most of the time even with 4-5 people in it too, on the german Autobahn on the east/west axis.
The status of the suspension - high in the front, really down low in the rear - became somehow a meme, we called it "polnisches Keilfahrwerk" - translates into something like "polish wedge chassis". ^^
> They are remembered quite fondly but I'm sure most of us are happy its days are behind us.
I have two stories to support that:
1. When I got mine, my parent _DID NOT WANT TO_ drive it, even for fun.
2. A friend of mine, a Brit, who spent 25+ years in Poland finally got his Polish citizenship a couple of years ago. I gave him keys to my Maluch as a "gift" so that he can get part of that "real Polish" experience. He parked the Maluch at my driveway the very next day and told me it was enough :)
My uncle had one in the rust bucket version. Back windows were made out of construction foam. And it used to be dark green in the past but by the time I was old enough to remember it, it was half silver from isolation tape and half rust. Still did 100km/h no problem. And in winter it took it about half an hour for the heating to kick in. What didn't change much since it was more holes than a car and the freezing air got in from every direction. But nothing is ever without it's bright side. During summer the draft was quite nice.
Great video! My parents once went on holidays from Poland to Greece. With their friends (4 adult persons) and camping gear on the roof! :)
So here's a story for you from my dad: back in 1986 when he was doing his army time in Hungary, he had an army buddy who was freakishly tall, around 205cm (that's 6'8-6'9 in american), and had a Kis Polski (btw, "kis" is pronounced like "kish", not like "kiss").
He didn't fit into that vehicle, so he opted to remove the driver's seat and sit on the rear seat while driving and also cut a hatch into the roof so he wouldn't have to bend forward to fit his head. So when you saw a Polski coming with a head sticking out on top, you knew it was him.
Im confused as to what Kis is, i never heard it reffered to as such lmao
@@wlodek7422 Kis is "little/small" in hungarian.
@@piritskenyer ooh, thanks
I know a similar story from Poland. In my home town back in the 80's and early 90's we had a great basketball player named Wójcik. He was like 210 or so (6.11ft) and he also owned the Maluch and also removed the front seat to be able to drive it. But he struggled to get in and out of the car due to his size.
I saw that trick in Police Academy. 😁
Two things connect Italy to Poland. The first one is the national anthem. The second one is the Fiat 126/126p. So happy to know you finally got one! ❤
Well in the late middle ages, an Italian princes became queen of Poland (krolowa Bona) and she brought most vedgetables to Poland. One word for veggies in Poland to this day is "Wloszczyzna", wich basicaly means "that stuff from Italy".
Don't forget about the Pope.
more than just the 126, FIAT was the company Poland signed with to essentially motorise the country in the interwar, the FIAT Poslki factory in Warszawa that made the 126 (and 125) was the same that built the 508 "Balilla", 518 "Ardita", and 500 "Topolino" in Poland before the second world war (among other models)
@@totalassuage The vegetables also have Italian names. Pomidor, Kalafior, etc. my wife has told me the story 100's of times
@@MrPeteragent If anything Pope divides Poles. Specifically the one with the yellow face.
I remember being driven around on icy mountain roads in Slovakia back in the mid 90s one winter and I can tell you - they are fun ride! You will find them all over Poland and Slovakia. There are 2 or 3 parked in the car park nearby - always clean and used daily.
My friend put a snow plow in front of his Maluch... and it work great. Me and few of my friends carry our PE teacher's Maluch and put it in center of our schools football field, I was 15 yo, this car almost has no weight. Most of the time when something broke up, you could find makeshift replacements parts in your girlfriends purse. Seriously this car is legendary.
btw, the older versions of the Maluch had a starter lever right next to where the heater and choke levers are. The winsheld washer fluid use to be a manual pump on a dash, where you would push a rubber extrusion with your thumb, as kids, we would sit in it, empty a whole reservoir playing with it ;) And yes, we use to fit mom, dad (who was over 6'tall) my two borthers and myself in this can! I"ve got so many great memories wrapped up in this little car! 🥲
and the starter lever was cable operated so when it broke you use a broom stick to start it 😂.
And that broom stick was later used to prop up the headliner to prevent it from falling down😃@@MOTOSTAN
In the summer a lot of drivers would drive around with a completely open engine bay for cooling and just used a small rope or something to tie the cover up so that it doesn't fall off I guess. Also, the noise it made was just unbelievable (from both inside and outside) and unmistakeable.
Much love to Poland from Hungary!
Yeah I almost forgot the noise when there was more than couple of them it's almost unbearable.
Still, I have nothing but respect for those little, great cars
@@kokroucz Nah sound for driver is not an issue because knees cover ears :D (old joke with this one in Poland :D)
Love the video, im so happy because i had a fiat 126p for 13 years, and now i have a Lada 2107 😂😂. I feel so identified haha. Here in cuba these two are two of the most popular cars out there.
Heater works surprisingly good in these, enough for european winters
My neighbour in Poland had a Maluch, and I remember him being out pretty much every day throughout the summer working on that thing. I think I've seen it being worked on more than actually being out driven.
Congratulations on your very own Tony.
Loved the chicken inclusion
My grandparents owned one, grandad loved it to bits, he became a cheeky drift master cutting corners etc while 8 of his grandkids sat inside 😅
My Mum bought an original Italian Fist 126 when she first passed her driving test in 1979. It was puke yellow with a black go faster stripe and the previous owner fitted a sports steering wheel. Give of us used to fit in her car, with us three kids in the back 😀. It was a comical vehicle but it served it's purpose, my Mum later bought an orange Fiat Strada (Ritmo).
Ok, next time you're both in the same area we *need* a collab with Garbage Time!
Seeing Wade rant about all the electric nuggets and you do your thing with all his 'an car's would be amazing!
This collab would be one of the best things ever.
I really appreciate that you've checked what the plural for "Maluch" is in Polish:) Small detail, sure- but a nice one!
I learned how to drive in this thing when I was 16 years old. That was 2 decades ago lol. 2 years later I passed driving exam at first try. Great memories.