Replika samochodu pancernego "Kubuś", Warsaw

Before you is the full-size reproduction of Kubuś, an improvised Polish armoured vehicle from the Warsaw Uprising. Its angular plated shell recalls a machine assembled for combat rather than factory production. The original began as a civilian Chevrolet truck chassis, locally made under licence before the war.

In a Powiśle repair workshop, its builders began work on the eighth of August nineteen forty-four; they devised it as they went, without drawings, and handed it over after only thirteen days. Steel armour was fastened onto a frame, making room for a driver, commander, and soldiers carried within. It brought a machine gun, flamethrower, grenades, and a PIAT weapon into battle.

Kubuś joined an assault on the University of Warsaw the day after completion, alongside a captured half-track. That attack failed, as did the later return. After ammunition ran out while covering insurgents withdrawing from Powiśle, the vehicle was disabled and burned. Its surviving hull reached the Polish Army Museum after the war, while this working replica was made for the Warsaw Uprising Museum in two thousand four.