Iwona Blecharczyk | |||||||
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Personal information | |||||||
Born | Iwona Monika Blecharczyk [1] 24 September 1987 Kosztowa, Poland | ||||||
Nationality | Polish | ||||||
Occupations |
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Website | Official website | ||||||
YouTube information | |||||||
Also known as | Trucking Girl | ||||||
Channels | Iwona Blecharczyk | ||||||
Years active | 2013–present | ||||||
Genres |
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Subscribers | 0.8 million | ||||||
Total views | 337 million | ||||||
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Last updated: 5 February 2024 |
Iwona Blecharczyk (born 24 September 1987) is a Polish lorry driver, transportation enthusiast and YouTuber. In 2013, she established the channel "Trucking Girl" on YouTube and then, in 2019, was awarded the title of "Barbie Shero" as a role model for girls. In 2021 she established an owner-operator transport company, Imagination Transport.
She comes from Kosztowa, Subcarpathian Voivodeship.[2] In 2007 she took part in the Miss Polonia beauty contest[3] and reached the finals of Miss Polonia of Podkarpacie in Mielec.[4][5] In 2010, when she graduated from university, Iwona Blecharczyk became a qualified teacher of English as a foreign language.[6] She worked as a minibus driver on the routes from Poland to England,[7] then she worked in the clothing industry.[8] In 2011, she started working as a professional lorry driver.[9]
In 2013, she founded the channel "Trucking Girl" on YouTube: she presents videos taken from her lorry cabin and talks on transport-related topics.[10] The channel is run in two languages – Polish and English. The viewers from Poland account for about half of the audience.[11] Outside Poland, the recordings are statistically most frequently watched in Germany, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.[12] She runs fan pages on Instagram and Facebook, too. In 2017 she was the face of advertising for the EuroShell fleet card.[13]
For six years, Blecharczyk worked in oversize transport, conveying items such as blades for wind turbines.[14] In the period 2017–2018, she travelled to Canada and the United States, where she worked as a driver of specialized lorries, driving along, among others, the Ice Trail and the oil fields.[15][16]
In 2019, Mattel awarded her (as the second Polish woman after Martyna Wojciechowska)[17] the title of Barbie Shero.[18][19] She has become the ambassador for the Volvo Trucks company.[20]
She was invited to participate as a speaker at a TEDx conference[21] and has worked as a volunteer driver.[22] In Poland, Discovery Channel chose Blecharczyk to present the TV series Przygody truckerki (Trucker woman's adventures).[23][24][25]
Articles on Blecharczyk have appeared in, among others, (in German) weekly Die Zeit,[26] Der Spiegel Panorama,[27] (in French) Canadian daily La Presse from Montreal,[28] the website metropolitaine.fr from Bordeaux,[29] and (in Hungarian) the website on transport (vezess.hu)[30]
In 2020, Muza S.A. published a 320-page book by Blecharczyk titled Trucking girl. 70-metrową ciężarówką przez świat (en: Trucking girl. With a 70-meter truck through the world) (ISBN 978-83-287-1519-6), on topics similar to her internet activities.
In 2021, Blecharczyk established her company Imagination Transport,[14] driving her Volvo FH13 truck-and-trailer set.[31] In 2023 the company expanded into oversize transport using a Volvo FH16 and a Goldhofer seven-axle semi-low-loader trailer.[32]