Hey pals! Ready to start your day with a nice big steaming cup of whatthefuck? Sure you are! We all are! So, with that in mind, I invite you to take a nice big swig of whatever the hell is going on with that 1980 Polski Fiat brochure cover up there. Is this a still from a scene in a musical? Are Piotr, Wojciech, and Borys over there about to burst into some song where they take turns trying to convince Katarzyna there that she should go out with them? But, really, Katarzyna only loves her red Polski Fiat 125p, and they should just deal with that? Is that what’s happening here?
Maybe things make more sense inside the brochure:
Ha ha ha, nope! They sure don’t!
What’s happening here? Dude parks in a dirt field surrounded by scrubby forest and tells the pair of substantially packed, middle-aged, besweatered women “we’re here!” Were they expecting a hotel, or perhaps, you know, any sort of building whatsoever? Maybe, but tough shit, right? You ladies get dropped off with all your suitcases here on this dirt clearing, and you can figure out your vacation from there. Have fun!
And what’s with the black pen lines that are outlining and emphasizing the window frames and door cutlines and the rubber weatherstripping around the rear hatch and the taillights? That’s weird, right? Someone has clearly outlined those windows. Is that what they think sells cars? Really noticeable window frames and rubber weatherstripping? Okay.
At least these Polski Fiat people know how to pack a trunk, though. Hot damn that is a well-packed trunk! There’s no wasted space anywhere! Mmm-mmm-MMMMM!
Is that shifter in your pocket … or are you just happy to see me?
I’m not sure what the guys said, but I’m pretty sure her answer was
“Fortunately, I’m Available Tonight”.
I just hope she picks the guy with the moustache, because his shirt is made of Bumbleflex!
It’s the Polish version of the Dating Game. First prize is the Fiat, second prize is the date, third prize is a year’s supply of pierogis.
I’ll take the pierogis!
Pierogi is already plural.
“What The Hell Is Going On Here”
A dating scene even more desperate than San Jose’s, that’s what’s going on.
Forget the weird pictures–I want to know why the Polish brochure for an Italian automaker is in English.
Note the massive red toolbox is the most accessible item in the final photo. Ready for the inevitable breakdown.
I know that I have an increasingly disturbing tendency to boil these ads down to being people who are about to fuck, but come on. These people are definitely going to fuck. It’s your fault for choosing pictures like this over and over again, Torch.
Whats the Polish translation of “Fuck”?
Checking my notes here, it appears to be “Fuck”.
Putin.
Well, it does say “Put-In.”
(joke stolen from somewhere)
Pretty sure two of those three Wild and Crazy Guys are Yortuk and Georg Festrunk looking to score with the foxes
I think it’s pretty obvious – she has obtained a car (through sleeping with a Communist Party Official?) and the boys are negotiating with her to join her in her escape from behind the Iron Curtain. This explains why they are loading up the car in a field near the border, and why they are taking all the luggage the car will carry, and then some.
Torch, this is before funny old Commie hating Ronald Regan got Gorbachev to “tear down that wall!” and people were doing desperate things (like trusting Fiat reliability) to escape.
https://www.rferl.org/a/great-escapes-iron-curtain-berlin-wall-communism-1989/30260367.html
This is still pre-Solidarność, or Solidarity, and pre-Lech Wałęsa, so this is maybe selling the dream of a liberal and free Poland? Grew up with Polski-Fiat and FSO’s in Norway in the 70’s and 80’s and still have a dream of finding a FSO 125p Pick-up, the only pick-up version of the Fiat 125?
Polski-mino ?
Back in the Stone Age when my high school played Hamtramck in football we would see scenes like this all the time in the parking lot. Only now do I realize that we were seeing the start of erotic Polish cinema.
The first photo looks like a promo for a “Three’s Company” type of show, but with the male/female ratio reversed and increased.
Well clearly the first pic says to ladies: Buy this car, and you can have your pick of skeezy lounge lizards.
The inside picture IS the group unloading for vacation on a deserted stretch of road. Remember, this was Cold War Poland, so you took what you could get for vacation.
The trunk picture demonstrates the quantity of state secrets you can fit in the back to buy your way to the west.
The second picture is exactly how Manos: Hands of Fate started.
In cold war Poland people didn’t have cars, much less vacations.
That top photo looks like the beginning of one of those movies that you fast forward through the beginning of.
But if you do that you miss the great music…
They clearly forgot the hair spray for the wagon photo shoot, because the wind is having its way and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Those people look cold.
Ahhh…back in the day when automakers used to put complex engineering specs in their brochures. Do you think the average CR-V buyer gives any f**ks about the steering ratio, let alone know if 1:16.4 is good or not? They want to know 1) if it has CarPlay and 2) if there a grocery bag hook in the back.
The top image looks like a promotional image from a 70s Eastern European production of Grease, or possibly West Side Story.
What I really want to know is what the hell is up with the cartoon windows in the luggage-loading scene.
I would have gone with porno
????You are supreme (ah-ah), the chicks’ll cream (ah-ah), for greased lightnin’
(Go go go, go go go go go go go go)????
She’s nervous, so keeping the car between them, but clearly interested in their proposal. I would say they’re negotiating. Rules of Engagement, so to speak.
How many bars of Cold Pressed Latinum?
I think those guys are all trying to give her a little Polski of their own if you know what I mean!
Katarzyna wants to drive stick. Unfortunately, the Polski shown is an automatic. That’s what’s going on there.
As for the pen lines, someone took a bad picture and they “fixed” it in post?
So, there is a knock off Freddie Mercury, John Travolta and Ritchie Cunningham with a knock off Madonna or whoever….what the hell IS going on??
I love the man just standing behind the vehicle there with a “Just fucking kill me now” look on his face.
“What do I do with my hands?”
Pretty sure these are scenes from the Polish version of “That 70’s Show.” The red head guy is the quirky foreigner from Minnesota, Fred. Mustashioed guy is the dumb one, Kielboso, and the John Travolta knock-off is Erickt Foreskinski. Of course, the red head girl is Donnavova.
The wagon scene is Erickt’s family:
dad-Comrade Red, constantly pissed off about his assembly line job at the nesting doll factory.
slutty sister in yellow sweater, Lauranova, who disappoints her parents because she is still single at the ripe old age of 15.
mom-Kittiyinski pulling the chopped-up remains of Hyderstinshi and Jackionna out of the wagon to ditch the evidence. Comrade Red got pissed when he caught the two of them smoking his last decadent American cigarette. You know how hard it is to get those in Communist Poland?!?
Using a knock off Lada too
My guess? There’s only a few car-related pics After that, things got heavy, pants came off, and they sold the second and third rolls of film from that first Photoshoot to Swedish Erotica.
Since she’s somehow gotten a 125p without being on the waiting list for twenty years, she must be some important party official, who can get guys an extra loaf of bread or a can of shoe polish (no pun pun intended actually). And therefore very attractive. I dont think sex before marriage has anything to do with it.