The main factory of Lilpop, Rau i Loewenstein in Warsaw was looted by the Germans during World War II and the buildings demolished.

Established in 1818, it was initially headed by Thomas Evans and Joseph Morris, two British nationals active in the Kingdom of Poland at the time.

[2] The company prospered until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, when all British citizens, including Alfred and Douglas Evans, had to leave the Russian Empire and its dependencies.

[3] Upon his return he took over the former State Machinery Factory (then headed by Wilhelm Rau, who continued to work for Lilpop), initially as its managing director and then as its owner.

[3] The new company was now the first true concern in Poland: it owned not only the mechanical works in Warsaw, but also two iron ore mines and steel mills in Drzewica and Rozwady, both near Radom.

[3] That year the factory sold 22 steam engines and 1422 various machines for 360,000 roubles, the steel mills of Rozwady and Drzewica brought additional 300,000 in income.

[1][5] Loewenstein, a Jewish entrepreneur from Berlin, was both the nephew and son-in-law of Leopold Kronenberg, the richest banker, industrialist and railroad tycoon of Poland.

[5] In addition, the company produced all sorts of iron and steel constructions, pipes, machinery, artillery shells, field kitchens and military equipment.

High tariffs were imposed on import of, among others, coal, ores, iron and steel; also a customs boundary was created between Congress Poland and the rest of Russia.

To counter the threat of being deprived of raw materials, in 1879 Lilpop company entered into a partnership with several bankers and turned their old iron foundry into a modern steel plant, the largest such factory in Poland.

[1] The Lilpop factory produced train engines, railway and tramway cars, bus bodies, lorry undercarriages (in cooperation with Hanomag), water turbines, industrial washing machines, rotodynamic pumps and many other products.

The monopoly was lifted in 1936 and Lilpop immediately signed a contract with General Motors and Opel to assemble cars in their Warsaw and Lublin factories.

Among them were passenger cars of several brands: Buick (41 and 90), Chevrolet (Master, Imperial,[citation needed] and Sedan Taxi), Opel (P4, Kadett, and Olimpia).

[2] During World War II the factory was taken over by Germany and assigned to Reichswerke Hermann Göring and continued the production, this time for the Wehrmacht.

[1] Perhaps the single best-known car produced by LRL was a Chevrolet 157 3-ton truck named Kubuś, converted to an improvised armoured personnel carrier during the uprising.

Perhaps the only part of the once powerful LRL concern that still exists is the Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych, the Lublin automotive branch of Lilpop, that was rebuilt after the war and continues to produce cars, notably the Tarpan Honker truck used by the Polish Army.

[2] Another part of the pre-war concern that continued production after the war was FSC Star, until 1939 a partially owned subsidiary producing truck components for Lilpop-made Chevrolets.