The success story of Skoda
The ŠKODA tradition began in 1894, when Václav Klement, a bookseller by trade, had reason to complain about shoddy workmanship on his new bicycle.
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The fairly rude response of the manufacturer prompted Klement to repair bicycles himself, teaming up with cycle mechanic Václav Laurin in 1895 to build and repair bicycles under the Slavia brand name.
Since then, the company has gone through political and economic changes through the decades, leading to its integration into the Volkswagen Group in 1991.
Today, ŠKODA is one of the most successful automobile brands, offering nine model lines and having established a presence in more than 100 countries worldwide.
For the purpose of reviewing the history of the Skoda brand, I am sharing an article by Neil Lyndon, a British auto blogger I have been following for some time now.
He writes:
A woman in our village keeps a close, constant watch on the press cars that pass through my hands. A Bentley, an Aston Martin or a Jaguar will cause her to tremble with covetous thrills, but every time she sees me with a Skoda, she scoffs "How are the mighty fallen!" or chortles "From the sublime to the ridiculous!"
To these responses, I just smile weakly and let her have it her way. Anybody who keeps a Peugeot 206 and a Land Rover Discovery and thinks they can look down on a Skoda is out of touch.
Skoda just came tops, out of all the world's car manufacturers, in a survey of some 64,000 car owners.
For customer satisfaction, for build quality and after-sales service, Skoda drubbed Honda and Toyota. It even beat out of sight the Audi brand, which is its stablemate in the VW group and which is meant to stand for the highest quality.
Not only are Skodas the best-built European cars and the best value for money, but they are also top-notch to drive. The Octavia is the most satisfying high-performance saloon or estate you can buy for less than £35,000.
The Skoda Yeti is the best of all "soft" off-roaders or urban 4x4s; and the new Superb estate is, for my money, the car of the year.
The history of Skoda's rise from being a (barely) running joke to becoming the most deservedly respected name in the car world is one of the triumphs of our age.
In many respects, the Skoda story runs as a thread through the texture of the most cataclysmic and disastrous events in Europe of the past century; and its emergence in exultant victory today is one of the most encouraging harbingers for the future.
Everybody knows that Skoda became a by-word for lousy, scuzzy construction and pitiful performance during the era of the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Driving a Skoda brought to life in your hands all the shortcomings and miseries of life under the Soviet regime, from the odious repellence of the cars' interiors to the unbelievable God-awfulness of their dynamic qualities.
Not so many people understand, however, that Skoda's recent rise is a return to the eminence the firm previously enjoyed; and that the VW group had the most urgent, basic and un-philanthropic business reasons for acquiring and rehabilitating that honourable and ancient name.
A century ago, Skoda was the most important industrial concern in the Austro-Hungarian empire - arms and heavy goods manufacturer which dwarfed Krupp in scale and output.
When the group acquired the Laurin & Klement car firm in the 20s, it amounted to little more than a pimple on an elephant's behind.
Though Skoda then made conveyances fit for kings and movie stars, it was not for the cars that Hitler coveted Skoda and occupied Prague. It was the company's output of tanks and guns he craved.
Likewise, Stalin appropriated Pilsen not for its beer but for the trains and trucks that Skoda constructed there.
The Volkswagen group acquired Skoda as the centrepiece of their own post-Nazi, post-Cold War strategy. They needed a brand they could sell in the emerging Eastern European and Russian markets, knowing full well that tens of millions of people living east of Warsaw would not dream of buying a German car.
It was in pursuit of that inspired approach that VW poured billions into the Skoda factory at Mladá Boleslav and turned it into the finest car plant in Europe.
The only thing that remains wrong with Skoda today is the toe-curlingly embarrassing names they give their cars - Roomster, Yeti, Superb.
They ought to take another leaf out of the company's history and revert to the code numbers of the 20s and 30s. Then Skoda might indeed be perfect - even though some people, sadly, may never catch on.