What’s the coolest Skoda you remember? No doubt something from the 110 or 120 line; Cold War-era ugly ducklings that by the late 1980s had defined – and almost ruined – a brand whose heritage stretches back to 1895.
It’s one of the biggest slights in the motoring world, where the history of one of only four currently operating car brands with more than 100 years behind them can be forgotten in the enduring mists of a communist rustbucket.
Despite the (well-deserved) bad reputation and utterly drab styling, there’s actually something quite charming about the worst Skodas ever made. It’s a naked honesty; a transparency only matched by the holes in their chassis after a few winters on salty roads.
Fortunately, the Skoda museum next to the factory in Mladá Boleslav shares the humility, but not the rust problems. It’s a small building by the standards of some other European car museums, walled in white and lit, in part, by alternating skylight windows and bright overhead strip lights that, as evening falls, create a blue- and yellow-striped ceiling effect.
A single storey is divided into three sections describing different elements of the brand’s history, but it all starts with what looks like a classic American car.
Only it can’t be, because it’s far too small. It’s a 1959 Skoda Felicia, and while it has all the chromed and be-winged looks of a Buddy Holly-era Cadillac it’s very definitely not. What it might just be, I think as I walk up to it, is Skoda’s coolest-ever car.
It’s the showpiece that opens the tour, and beyond it stands a chart of 118 years of history. A couple of the earliest motorcyclettes are there, with their tiny engines and bicycle-style pedals – mainly because they were adapted push-bikes.
There are real rarities, too, like Skoda’s only eight-cylinder car ever, the Type 860, of which just 49 were made.
There are stunning old racing cars of the sort I never knew Skoda had gone anywhere near building, as well as competition cars from its history of rallying.
Of course, there’s a nod to the more recent past, with a very tidy example of the 1994 Felicia; the first car to be designed following Volkswagen’s initial stock acquisition in 1991. Its interior still smells wonderfully factory-fresh after a fairly easy life and, sitting in its plush but hideous seats, nostalgia comes very easily.
Skoda’s Vision D concept has found a home there, too, as the concept that gave birth to the latest Octavia and Rapid families, as well as the styling cues for all the now-current Skoda models.
One of the rooms in the museum takes the idea of a ‘feature wall’ to new extremes. A huge rack, four shelves high, with five cars on each, forms a fascinating centrepiece. The temptation to climb the frame to get a better look at the higher levels plucks at my resolve, but I don’t want to get thrown out just yet.
At the museum, Skoda also restores classic models that it acquires. A detailed four-car display area shows the process, from a completely unrestored old model through its complete disassembly and rebuilding to completion, along with some of the tools and tales involved.
This place might be small, but you get a real sense of the industry that created it. It’s not a glamorous ‘jewel in the crown’ in the way Mercedes’ incredible venue in Stuttgart is, but nor is it meant to be.
Before I have to leave there’s time for a look into a building rarely open to the public. They call it ‘the depository’, and it’s where a lot of the museum’s one-offs are kept.
Wow. I could spend all day just in this one room, removed as it is from the main museum building and placed behind locked doors and the sort of spiky locked gate you’d prefer not to climb over.
There are amazing models from throughout the Skoda story, from the pre-1900 bicycle that Messrs Laurin and Klement started with, to the concept that spawned the phenomenally successful Yeti. Several bonkers motorsports concepts call the depository their home, too.
Among decades of history in the more ordinary ranks, you see where current names have come from. Rapid, Felicia, Octavia, Superb – they’re all there in their faded, time-worn and paint-peeled glory. It’s a complete treat to see them in their original, unrestored condition.
As I’m ushered out of the controlled atmosphere to the car that’s set to take me back to Prague Airport, I have to rate this museum as a little gem. Maybe it won’t be counted among the great European car museums but then Skoda always has preferred to fly largely below the radar.
It’s an accurate and fitting tribute to an incredible, and at times incredibly difficult, past, and a manufacturer that has stood the test of time better than most.