configuration and look, resulting in its common nickname (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 or ("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. This series became known as the Ikarus 200-family (or series). Ikarus 200-series The first prototype of the new model family, the Ikarus 250 was presented at the Budapest International Fair (BNV), in 1967. The whole idea behind this series was to create a model family, which is versatile. One that can be easily modified to be sufficient as a city, a suburban or as a coach vehicle. Today this is called modular design, but it was not yet a widespread solution in the late 1960s. It was the designer, László Finta's idea to make the structure of the bus more angular, therefore creating more space along with better view for the passengers. The prototypes were participating on a number of international events and contests and won quite a few awards. In 1969, at the International Autobus Week in Nice, the