Luckily, a significant part of our pre-war technical staff survived, quite numerous car engineers. In fact, immediately after the end of hostilities, they started working, related to the difficult task of reviving our automotive industry. It was possible to distinguish three creative clusters of engineering staff in the first post-war years: in Warsaw - despite the colossal damage, in the boat, where it was possible to work in relatively normal conditions at the earliest, and in Bielsko, in which a design office was established shortly after the end of the war under the management of MSc. Frederic Bluemke, specializing in the design of two-stroke engines. As part of the Automotive Industry Union, the Central Research and Construction Office no 5 - Branch no 1 in the boat. This Lodz office focused its activities around professors Jan Werner - the founder of this institution, Jerzy Werner and Mieczysław Dębicki from Gdańsk. It was also there that a conceptual design for the chassis of a Polish truck was created, for elaboration
which was approved by the Central Board of the Metal Industry. Work on the engine was carried out in the private apartment of prof. Jan Werner in Łódź. He recalled:
"I remember the trip from Łódź to Bydgoszcz for one roll of tracing paper and to Katowice for a dozen drawing pencils. There was no question of buying drawing boards or drawing tables. The first drawing tables were ordered from a carpenter - a neighbor based on the drawings provided. "
Lively discussions on the assumptions of the Polish truck were conducted, m.in. in one of the first open cafes in Warsaw on the corner of ul. Marszałkowska and Hoża, pre-war employees of Państwowe Zakłady Inżynierii, who have already had many experiences behind them, related to the construction and production of cars, and they already thought about the concept of a future Polish truck during the occupation. The idea of such a car arose before the war, and its initiator was Eng. Mieczyslaw Debicki. The developed documentation was lost during the war, and right after the end of the war, M.. Dębicki together with a group of eng. Bronisław Mrozowski, he recreated from memory the most important fragments of the car's structure. It was established soon, that the place of production of the car will be Starachowice, and the name of the vehicle will be Star. In the aforementioned CBK-5, co-ordinated design activities were undertaken on this car. The main constructor of the engine with the working designation S-40 was Eng. Jan Werner, drive transmission system eng. Jerzy Werner - later rector of the Lodz University of Technology, and the development of the framework, wheel suspension and steering was entrusted to a team led by the creator of the Star concept - Eng. Mieczysław Dębicki. Warsaw Branch of the Design and Research Center under the supervision of Eng. Stanisław Panczakiewicz, he designed the body and the load box, while prof. Zygmunt Grzonkowski electrical installation of the car.
Msgr inż. Jerzy Ukraiński - one of the founders of Star, CBK-5 employee: „Wieść o zadaniach CBK nr 5 in Łódź, it was spreading more and more widely in the circles of people associated with the automotive industry. Voices prevailed at that time: what are you drawing there? Who, where and on what will it be produced?
– Ale szaleńców tego typu było wówczas w naszym kraju wielu”.
In October 1946 The construction documentation of the S-40 engine was ready and these drawings were sent to the experimental plant of the Central Research and Construction Office, located at the Mechanical Works in Ursus, led by prof. Alesander hype. A prototype of the engine was made in this plant, according to the documentation, which was coming from Lodz. However, the technical and material possibilities of that time forced to introduce many changes. One day a parcel arrived from Ursus to Łódź. It was a wreath with a card with the following content:
“On the occasion of the thousandth design change, jubilee greetings are sent by the staff of the Experimental Station in Ursus. "
Lodz enthusiasts were not discouraged by the same, otherwise lovable teasing and early spring 1948 of the year, the prototype of the S-40 engine was ready. It was not without design flaws, but they were removed on a regular basis and on the dynamometer an improved engine called the S-40R gave the required power 61 kW (83 KM). It was sent to Zakłady Starachowickie, where after the decision in 1947 After the first year of starting the production of trucks, preparations were made for the production of a prototype series of Star-20 cars.
Recalls Eng. Jan Kuczyński - long-term manager of the FSC Tools Department:
"Together with Eng. Kasprzycki, we received an order to start the power plant. We made extra money for the turbine speed controllers on our only lathe, powered ... by hand. There were no walls in one of the halls, so we made substitutes from a tarpaulin. We heated the offices with hot castings, and the assembly halls with the heat from the steam locomotive. Nobody asked about the salary then. The first paycheck was a half a loaf of Bread. This was the case for the first two months after the liberation. We traveled to Silesia to get the materials, with cash in my pocket and fear, that someone will take it from us, because the post-war times were troubled. The country lacked means of transport. That is why we all welcomed the decision to grant us the production of cars ".