The long history of the company that now provides our police cars

Tuesday, 12 January 2021

Watch: six decades (well, with a break in the middle) of Skoda's mainstream family car.

Skoda might have been the punchline to a bad joke for people over a certain age, but those jokes don’t really work anymore, because Skoda has been cool for some time now.

In fact, come 2021, seeing a Skoda in your rearview mirror will be most certainly not be a joke, as the company, that is part of the huge Volkswagen Group, recently signed a deal to supply vehicles to the New Zealand police following Holden’s dramatic, but hardly unexpected, demise.

But what do you exactly know about Skoda? How about the fact that it is actually one of the oldest car manufacturers in the world, with a rich and varied history that has led it to where it is today? No? Well, now you do.

Skoda’s first car, the Voiturette A, and its latest, the forthcoming Enyaq EV.

Almost exactly 125 years ago – shortly before Christmas 1895 – a mechanic named Václav Laurin and a bookseller called Václav Klement laid the foundation stone for the company that is now known as Skoda Auto.

**READ MORE:

A tale of two Václavs: Klement (left) was a bookseller and Laurin (right) an engineer. Their mutual love of cycling led them to form a company together.

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Laurin & Klement’s first car was the 1.0-litre Voiturette A that could travel at speeds of up to 40kmh in 1905.

The two founders were united by a passion for cycling and wanted to offer bicycles built from the best materials available, while still being affordable. In their small workshop in the town of Mladá Boleslav in what is now the Czech Republic, three people were employed to make bicycles driven by foot or hand (yes, really).

Then and now. The factories have changed a bit over 125 years.

One year later, 21 employees were making five different models of bikes, which bore the name “Slavia”, while the range was soon expanded to include bicycles for children, tandem bicycles, two-wheelers with chain or shaft drive, and tricycles for transporting goods or people.

Laurin and Klement seized on the demand for individual mobility and quickly expanded their company to produce other forms of transportation, and on the 18th of November 1899 revealed the first two motorbikes to the public, the Slavia A and B models.

Despite descending into being the butt of a joke after being nationalised after WWII, Skoda still produced some great cars, like the pretty little Felicia convertible from 1959.

To make the bikes easier to operate and more stable, the engine was installed in the lower area of the frame – something new at the time, but which has gone on to essentially become the international standard and is considered to be a great achievement by the intuitive engineer of the pair, Václav Laurin.

While Laurin was the engineering brains, the company’s rapid growth was largely due to the vision and entrepreneurial talent of Václav Klement.

Skoda’s first step back to respectability is largely regarded as the Italian-designed Favorit from 1987 that is said to have been the reason Volkswagen bought the company.

Klement succeeded in winning large orders both on the domestic market and in industrialised countries such as Germany and Great Britain, while the outstanding qualities of the motorbikes were also confirmed by their success in demanding racing events.

The company’s motor racing debut at the Paris-Berlin race in 1901 - when Narcis Podsedníček came in first by a wide margin after 1,196 kilometres - earned the company legendary status, but the highlight of the motorbike era was the victory in the unofficial motorbike world championship in Dourdan near Paris on 25 June 1905.

The Trekka, New Zealand's only locally designed and engineered vehicle to enter series-production, sat on Skoda underpinings.

At the end of that same year the company revealed its first automobile: the Laurin & Klement Voiturette A, a light and manoeuvrable car that packed a 1.0-litre two-cylinder engine and could travel at speeds of up to 40kmh.

Less than a year after entering the automobile manufacturing business, Laurin & Klement’s range included a wide variety of two- and four-cylinder models and the company enhanced its prestige with the first eight-cylinder vehicle manufactured in Europe – the Type FF – in 1907.

Laurin & Klement quickly rose to become the largest automobile manufacturer in Austria-Hungary, exporting to several dozen markets on every continent before the First World War.

Three decades after the company was founded, Laurin & Klement merged with “a strong strategic partner” in 1925, a Pilsen-based engineering group called Skoda.

The newly-named Skoda Auto soon converted its facility in Mladá Boleslav to the far more efficient assembly line style of production and launched a new generation of vehicles including the Popular, Rapid, Favorit and Superb models.

After the Second World War, the company was nationalised and by the 1970s that proud history was tarnished by some fairly average Soviet-era cars that earned the company its unenviable position as the punchline to a joke in the West.

But in between that time some pretty iconic Skoda’s still rolled out of the European factories, including the now-legendary first Octavia from 1959.

The inauguration of a new factory site in Mladá Boleslav in March 1964 saw a rapid increase in annual production volumes and that same year saw the release of the rear-engined Skoda 1000 MB saloon, followed by the iconic 110 R sports coupé from 1970.

The 130 RS, which was derived from the 110, rose to become one of the most successful racing and rally cars in its category from 1975 onwards, receiving the nickname “Porsche of the East”.

During the same time Skoda was unwittingly providing the seed that would spawn the New Zealand car manufacturing industry, with the only locally designed and built car to enter series production – the legendary Trekka – being built on the platform on the Skoda Octavia and debuting on the 2nd of December 1966.

While it looked like a Land Rover, the Trekka wasn’t actually 4WD (because the Octavia sedan sure wasn’t), so it wasn’t much use off road, however it eventually became popular with both rural buyers and urban tradesmen.

The Trekka’s off road performance was improved when legendary New Zealand race engineer Ray Stone developed a limited slip differential for it and 708 Trekkas were sold in its first year of production. By January 1968 the 1,000th had been manufactured and when production ceased in 1973, close to 2,500 had been built.

Today the legendary Kiwi Trekka is actually recognised by Skoda as the company’s first (albeit unofficial) SUV and several excellent examples have been bought up by the factory and shipped over to the Czech Republic.

After a few decades of decline the Volkswagen Group acquired Skoda Auto on the 16th of April 1991, making it the fourth brand to join the Volkswagen Group after Volkswagen, Audi and Seat.

The money and engineering muscle provided by the Volkswagen Group quickly saw Skoda turn its fortunes around and a large part of Skoda’s successful re-emergence into the European market is often credited to the fact that the company began supplying cars to the British police, increasing the brand’s profile and leading buyers to reason that if the police were buying them, they can’t be unreliable jokes any more. Which was very much the case.

Today, in addition to its three Czech plants, Skoda builds cars in China, Russia, India, Slovakia and Ukraine and is active in more than 100 markets worldwide. Within the Volkswagen Group, Skoda manages the activities of the Group and its brands in Russia, India and North Africa.