The first Pobeda was developed in the Soviet Union under chief engineer Andrei A. Liphart. "Pobeda" means "victory"; and the name was chosen because the model's first tests were done in 1943 at Gorky Avto Zavod (GAZ, "Gorky Car Plant"), when victory in World War II began to seem likely. The plant was later heavily bombarded, but work was unaffected. The first prototype was ready on November 6, 1944, and after it gained approval the first production model rolled off the assembly line on June 21, 1946. The car was a successful export for the USSR, and the design was licensed to the Polish FSO factory in Warsaw, where it was built as the FSO Warszawa beginning in 1951. A few were assembled in Pyongyang, North Korea.