Ursus (company)

Ursus
legal form	Corporation
founding	1893
resolution	2011
Reason for dissolution	insolvency
Seat	Lublin Poland
Branch	Agricultural engineering
Website	www.ursus.com

Historic Ursus share

Ursus emblem on the grille

Ursus 5314 Agro

Ursus 1224

Ursus 5714 K07S

Ursus is the name of a traditional Polish company from Warsaw that mainly manufactured agricultural machinery and tractors . The tractors and buses sold under the name since 2011 are produced by Pol-Mot .

history

The company was founded in 1893 by the engineers Kazimierz Matecki, Ludwik Rossman and Kazimierz Schonfeld and the entrepreneurs Ludwik Fijałkowski, Aleksander Radzikowski, Stanisław Rostocki and Karol Strassburger in the Warsaw district of the same name, Ursus . The industrial partner company with its own special fittings factory , whose start-up capital consisted of the dowries of the daughters of the founders, initially mainly produced fittings for the sugar industry . Shortly thereafter, other fittings for other food industries and water management were added .

In 1902, production in the company's own factory was increased significantly and the construction of internal combustion engines began . The company also got its name, which was used until 2010 and goes back to Ursus , a strong man in the award-winning novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz . After the end of the Polish-Soviet War , the company changed into a commercial vehicle manufacturer and, in addition to trucks , buses and tractors, also produced motorcycles and armored vehicles . The series production of our own tractor began in 1922, after the first prototype had been created in 1918, but production had to wait due to the war. As a result of overproduction, however , Ursus ran into financial difficulties in 1930 and was nationalized shortly afterwards.

The production facilities, which were largely destroyed in the Second World War , were completely rebuilt after 1945; the focus was now on the construction of tractors. But it wasn't until May 1, 1947 that the first tractor, an Ursus C-45 as a replica of the Lanz Bulldog D 9506 , could leave the factory. By the end of production in 1959, Ursus is said to have produced 60,000 pieces of this type in various variants. In 1962, an intergovernmental agreement with Czechoslovakia led to permanent cooperation with the Czechoslovak tractor manufacturer Zetor . For this purpose, a joint research and development facility was established in Brno . 1974 followed a license agreement with Massey Ferguson , later another with Perkins .

After the system change in Poland in 1989, Ursus initially remained in state ownership. In 1998 it and its subsidiaries were partially restructured, but a long-term adjustment to the new conditions on the international market was not successful. Due to a sharp drop in orders, the company, now run as a stock corporation, finally became insolvent in 2003.

In the course of the rescue measures carried out, the Turkish holding company Uzel bought a majority stake in Ursus in 2007 and, despite the initiated insolvency proceedings, continued the company together with the Polish industrial group Bumar until 2010.

In 2011, the Polish Pol-Mot group took over a 45.46% stake in Ursus Sp. Z oo. The actual company then operated under the name LZM2 Sp. Z oo as a corporation until its complete dissolution . The eventual sale of the total shares in the company and the brand name cost Pol-Mot the equivalent of 3.5 million euros. The factory in Warsaw was closed at the end of 2011. Since then, Pol-Mot has only sold tractors manufactured in Dobre Miasto and Opalenica under the Ursus brand . In addition to the production of new models, older model series are also continued, and in 2014 sales were expanded from Europe and Asia to Africa .

Since 2015, buses have also been manufactured and sold under the Ursus brand . Ursus Bus SA , wholly owned by Pol-Mot and based in Lublin , has specialized in the development of battery buses and trolleybuses , making it a direct competitor to the Polish competitor Solaris . Ursus Dystrybucja Sp. Z oo is also responsible for sales .

In 2020, the Dutch agricultural machinery supplier Trioliet took over the plant operated by Ursus SA in Opalenica, where components had already been produced for it. In the same year, insolvency proceedings were opened that encompass the operations of Ursus SA and the associated tractor operations. The other two companies operating under the brand are not affected.

Previous company names

Przemysłowe Towarzystwo Udziałowe
Towarzystwo Udziałowe Specyalnej Fabryki Armatur i Motorów
Fabryka Silników i Traktorów “Ursus” SA
Zakłady Mechaniczne "Ursus" SA
Zrzeszenie Przemysłu Ciągnikowego "Ursus" Sp. Z oo
Zakłady Przemysłu Ciągnikowego "Ursus" SA
LZM2 Sp. Z oo

Models

Models manufactured under license

Ursus C-45 (1947-1959)

The company's best-known product is the Ursus C-45 , a replica of the Lanz Bulldog D 9506 manufactured between 1947 and 1959. It corresponded to the original in almost every detail: single-cylinder hot -head engine , displacement 10,338 cm³, 33 kW (45 hp), dead weight : 3,750 kg, manual transmission with 6 forward and 2 reverse gears, speed approx. 3 to 16 km / h. Over 60,000 of the Ursus C-45 model were manufactured.

literature

Horst Hinterdorf: Typenkompass - tractors and agricultural machinery - GDR imports from the Comecon countries , Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02646-5 .