page_title: Ikarus (Hungarian company)
section_title: Models between 1951 and 1967
hierarchical_section_title: Ikarus (Hungarian company) / History / Golden age – the Communist era (1948–1989) / Models between 1951 and 1967
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Ikarus 180-as Moszkvában English: Ikarus 180 in Moscow
context_page_description: Ikarus was a bus manufacturer based in Budapest and Székesfehérvár, Hungary. It was established in 1895 as Imre Uhry's Blacksmith Workshop and Coach Factory and during the Communist era in Hungary it dominated bus markets of the entire Eastern Bloc and its allies.
context_section_description: In 1951, after a long and heated argument between the engineers and the political decision makers on whether unibody or body-on-frame vehicles should be produced, the parties managed to reach a compromise. The engineers – who were pro-unibody – were allowed to design one of the two upcoming models with such construction. But they were only permitted to develop a smaller bus, a successor to the Tr 3,5. While the political will forced them to create the larger vehicles (the successor of the Tr 5) on chassis. Out of this "compromise" the company's first vehicle was born, that was actually bearing the factory's name: the Ikarus 30. It was designed as a universal vehicle to serve city and intercity routes, as well as coach services. However, the bus proved to be insufficient to be used in the cities, as it was way to small, narrow, and the windows on the roof were creating greenhouse effect during the summer. Hence, the model received the sobriquet of nylonbus from the passengers.
  As much as it proved to be an insufficient city bus, it was successful as a coach. It became the first of many Ikarus models to be exported in large numbers. East Germany and China bought over 600 units each, while Czechoslovakia also ordered 500 vehicles.
  The year 1951 sought another new model's birth as well: the Ikarus 60, which was the successor of the Tr 5 model. The Ikarus 60, as mentioned before, was a body-on-frame design forced by the decision makers, designed by the Vehicle Development Institution (Járműfejlesztési Intézet or JÁFI) and constructed by Ikarus itself. The Ikarus 60 proved to be a versatile vehicle and with some modifications, many submodels were built on its basis. The most notable example is the Ikarus 60T, produced between 1952 and 1956, which was the company's first trolleybus model.
  The other important submodels were the ITC 600 and the IC 660, which were built between 1960 and 1967 as one of the first mass-produced articulated bus models in the world. Although it is worth noting, that these modification were not done by Ikarus or its workers, but by FAÜ, one of the operator companies. Hence, they were often referred to as FAÜ-articulated (FAÜ-csuklós).
  There are a number of great achievements belonging to the company and one of those were the Ikarus 55 and Ikarus 66 sister models. From the two unique models there were a total of 16,726 units built between 1952 and 1973. Their engines were mounted in the rear section of the vehicles, which had a distinctive configuration and look, resulting in its common nickname Faros (roughly: Buttocks). The sister models became icons of Hungarian bus history.
  In the second half of the 1950s, Ikarus started to develop the successors of the Ikarus 30 and 60 models, hence created the Ikarus 31 and the Ikarus 620. The former was sold in large numbers to East Germany, while the latter was popular in Hungary and the Soviet Union.
  In 1963, the Hungarian state decided to merge the Általános Mechanikai Gépgyár or ÁMG ("General Mechanical Machine Factory") with Ikarus. ÁMG's factory was in Székesfehérvár, hence the second plant of Ikarus was created there.
  The 1960s were spent by redesigning the palette of models, out of which three models were born, which were based on the same design and elements: Ikarus 180, 556 and 557, which were to give an alternative to all the existing and still operating previous models. The Ikarus 180 must be highlighted out of the triumvirate, as it was the first articulated bus model developed and produced by Ikarus. Although it must be mentioned, that for the development, the company acquired a Henschel HS 160 USL vehicle, which was developed by the German Henschel company and at the time was regarded as „The Articulated Bus”. Ikarus actually disassembled and reassembled the vehicle over and over again in order to understand it. Technically it was almost identically copied by the engineers.
  In the second half of the 1960s the development of these three vehicles was stopped, when the company decided to invest most of its resources into a new, versatile model series. 
caption: A restored Ikarus 180 in Moscow, Russia
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