Polish rarities discovered

by Nick Drew | Tue 15 May 2018

Polish rarities discovered

Regular contributor Gary Major has been on his travels again and this time has found some rare machines rusting in peace in the Polish city of Stalowa Wola in the South East of the country.

Named after the city which bares its name, Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW) was a long-term steel mill and producer of military equipment which was first established in 1937. During the 1960’s and 70’s the company started manufacturing heavy construction equipment with a big focus on bulldozers. The factory had also built a number of famous brands under licence including Coles Cranes, Jones Cranes, Clark Equipment and of course International Harvester. In more recent years machines have been branded as Dressta, but in 2012 Dressta was acquired by LiuGong Machinery and renamed LiuGong Dressta Machinery. Gary often visits Poland in his role of Director of Industrial Design for LuiGong and on a recent visit he came across some abandoned machines locally baring the Stalowa Wola brand name including this TD25 dozer based on the famous International Harvester model.

Also laying here was a rare telescopic handler which looked similar to the French Sambron models of the late 70’s but on a much heavier scale. This machine also bares the Stalowa Wola brand name but looks to have been rather neglected.

This is the same machine taken from the other side and of interest in the background is another Stalowa Wola machine, in this instance an SB30 side boom tractor. This machine is still available in the Dressta range and is the smallest side boom model they produce weighing in at 27.6 tonnes and offering a maximum lift capacity of 33.1 tonnes. The machine is powered by a 140kw Cummins engine.

A visit to the Dressta/LiuGong facility in Poland which is a major employer in the area, is definitely on my to do list in the future and I am sure it will be an interesting place to see with all its historical manufacturing legacy. The Digger Man Blog would like to thank Gary for these interesting photos. As an addition to this post, check out this old archive footage I came across featuring machines built by Huta Stalowa Wola in Poland including wheeled loaders dozers and articulated dumptrucks, the commentary is in Polish, but its still worth a watch.

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