Filed Under: News
What a pleasure it is to write about a car company that has turned adversity into success, as the title suggests it’s definitely not British, Skoda the car manufacturer that was the butt of comedians jokes for a number of years, the car company that the British motoring press had difficulty finding anything positive to write about.
A short history of the early beginnings of this company, like many others they started manufacturing bicycles, messr’s Laurin and Klement, and then turned to motorcycles and finally got round to producing cars, though not part of this particular article they also built trucks and buses and aero engines and agricultural machinery.
They had been so successful that in 1907 they floated a joint stock company and there was no stopping, in 1925 they amalgamated with Pilsen Skoda.
Like many companies on mainland Europe during world war two they became pawns to whoever was in charge, Skoda unfortunately became a producer for the German war machine, so much that the works were renamed “Herman Goering Works”, but at least Skoda was still working, late in the war, actually 1945, the factory was virtually destroyed by advancing forces.
Depending on your view of the world the country was occupied by another dictator, the Russians did not permit any sharing of information with the western allies, which sort of left Skoda on it’s own. One must consider the vehicles they turned out were rugged, which matched the kind of roads they would endure outside of urban area’s.
The Skoda plant was up and running again before the end of the year 1945, it was said that the design and technical content of the cars lagged far behind their western counterparts, far be it for me to add fuel to that argument, except in saying was the western made car that good?
In 1959 the Octavia saloon rolled out of the Mlada Boleslav factory, ah there is a good reason for the name, it was the eighth car produced by the nationalized company. It was a natural development of the earlier 440 which had been launched in 1954
I always thought the Octavia had something special about its looks, mark you it was a cheap car to buy in the UK, 745.00 pounds, there was a stigma to driving something that originated from behind the iron curtain though there was a lot of politics involved.
Nearly 300,000 rolled off the production lines at Mlada Boleslav, the first ones were 1089cc engines producing 40 BHP which was increased to 50BHP and later an increased size engine of 1221cc was fitted, the gearbox was a four speed,, top speed of about 78mph and a 0-60 time of 29 secs.
Suspension was telescopic shocks at the front and a live axle with transverse leaf spring at the back, it was a monocoque body.
Apparently the Octavia was reliable, run on low grade petrol and relatively frugal. It was also extremely well made, ok it had rubber mats and not carpets, so what so did the early Volvo’s.
There was a convertible version the Felicite, I have seen a picture at one of the events covered by the club of a red one, I have no idea if it is a club member.
Having scoured the various sites there are very few Skoda Octavia’s for sale, in fact I could not find one, which makes this some desirable motor, it might not have the kudos of a Jag or an MG, but then they are ten a penny compared to the Skoda, there was one Skoda for sale, a special built for rallying yours if you have 48000.00 sterling.
Ted Lay tedlay@gmail.com
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