Sanok Bus Factory "Autosan"

The history of the plant in the town of Sanok in south-eastern Poland, near the Ukrainian and Slovak borders, goes back to 1832, when Walenty Lipiński and Mateusz Beksiński founded a boiler workshop there. In the second half of the 19th century the factory also built steam engines and locomotives, and at the beginning of the 20th century it specialised in building railway wagons. Among other things, the first 15 bus bodies were built in 1929, and after the Second World War about 70 fire engines on the chassis of trophy vehicles. At that time the plant was called the Sanok Wagon Works "Sanowag". Series production of buses began in Sanok in the early 1950s, when the Star 51 and 52 buses based on the Star 20 truck went into production. Somewhat later the San brand was adopted; in the 1950s and 60s the plant also built the San H01, H25, H27 and H100 buses using Star units. The plant was named the Sanok Bus Factory in 1958. In 1967 a batch of 15 Sanos 09 buses built in Macedonia (then Yugoslavia) was assembled; developing the Yugoslav design further soon resulted in the Autosan H9. After several modifications this model stayed in production until 2006. In 1994 the plant was privatised, and the Polish industrial group Zasada SA became its owner. Today Autosan, together with Jelcz and Solaris, is one of the three largest Polish bus manufacturers. It builds various touring, suburban, school and special-purpose buses. See more on the manufacturer's website!