Ursus 1604

In 1965 the Warsaw plant began building the C-4011 under a licence agreement with Zetor in Brno. At its heart sat the S-4001 engine, the Polish version of Zetor's Z-4001. That kinship runs through the ranges: the later C-360, built from 1976 and in the programme until the end of 1994, used the S-4003, the strongest engine of that family.

In 1974 a second licence followed — the British one from Massey Ferguson, together with the associated production plant. Models such as the MF 235, MF 255 and MF 265 were then built in Poland with Perkins engines and became a fixture on many farms. The higher Ursus ranges with four-digit numbers descend from this line.

One remarkable long-runner stands out: the C-325 and its revised versions C-328 and C-330 — popularly the "thirties" — plus the C-335 export version, ran without interruption for 34 years until 1993.

When buying used it is therefore worth establishing the range's ancestry first. An Ursus from the Zetor line shares engine parts with Czech machines, one from the Massey Ferguson line with British ones. That decides where to look for components.