The Mladá Boleslav-based manufacturer has been active in motorsport for 121 years. It has since gone down in history with numerous special racing and rally models. In 1946, ŠKODA made its mark with the attractively designed Model 1101, nicknamed the ‘Tudor’ – a Czech phonetic adaptation of the English adjective ‘two-door’. Demand for the new model quickly grew internationally, not least because of its numerous motorsport successes. The car took part in the 2,649 km Rally Rajd Polski (1948) as well as the South American Rally Montevideo – Melo – Montevideo and the circuit race in Spa, Belgium. In this event, three ‘Tudor’ four-seaters covered 1,972 km in 24 hours and crossed the finish line together.

At the Czechoslovak Grand Prix in Brno (1949), the ŠKODA Sport successfully held its own against the competition with numerous parts from the production car and hand-made aluminium pontoon bodywork. The vehicle was then adapted to meet the regulations of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. At the Sarthe, the works team Václav Bobek/Jaroslav Netušil took to the track for the 18^th staging of the race on 24 June 1950.

The ŠKODA Sport had two extra headlights for the night hours of the race, while special openings in the radiator grille improved the cooling of the drum brakes on the front wheels. In addition, the wheelbase had been extended to 2,150 mm to ensure greater driving stability. Including tools and spare parts, the vehicle weighed in at a mere 700 kg. The vehicle featured a water-cooled four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 1,089 cm³, and the electrics came from the Czech manufacturer PAL 12 V. The ŠKODA Sport delivered an output of 50 hp (37 kW) at 5,200 rpm mounted on bias-ply Barum tyres. It ran on a special fuel mixture of petrol, ethanol and acetone. The top speed was 140 km/h, and the fuel consumption was low for its time at 12 litres per 100 km. As a result, the Škodians did not have to refuel as often as many of their competitors.

During the first 13 hours of the race, the driver team Bobek/Netušil fought their way to second place with their ŠKODA Sport in the under 1,100 cm³ category and a sensational fifth place overall based on the power coefficient. However, a minor technical defect prevented the team from reaching their potential; the regulations prevented it from being rectified on site. In the 121^st lap of the race, the piston pin circlip broke. According to the regulations, the crew was only allowed to use the spare parts and tools on board, but the circlip they needed was not among them. The following year, the carmaker planned to field two reworked ŠKODA Sports. However, the political situation prevented this from happening. Thus, the appearance in June 1950 is still to this day the last time a Czech vehicle with a Czech crew would take part in the 24-hour race in Le Mans.

Return after 72 years: Le Mans Classic 2022
The 24-hour race in Le Mans was held for the first time in May 1923 and historic vehicles now also race on the 13.626-kilometer circuit every two years as part of the Le Mans Classic. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ŠKODA Sport’s appearance to celebrate the the 70^th anniversary of its Le Mans start had to be postponed from June 2020 to July 2022.

The car that had previously competed in the 1950 24 hours of Le Mans entered the event for the first time this year. The painstakingly restored ŠKODA Sport was driven by Stanislav Kafka and Michal Velebný, the head of the restoration workshop at ŠKODA AUTO. His grandfather Josef Velebný had originally designed the bodywork of the ŠKODA Sport. Just as at its first start in 1950, the car took to the track again this year with the number 44. The second of only two ŠKODA Sports ever built took part in the Le Mans Classic back in 2006.

Michal Velebný comments on the start of the Le Mans Classic: “After a six-year renovation, this year we managed to bring the project of returning ŠKODA Sport to Le Mans to a successful goal. The car was able to cope with regular careful maintenance during a difficult weekend, avoiding major technical difficulties. It’s an amazing feat for our 73-year-old car.”

There are numerous individual races in the Le Mans Classic, and registered vehicles from all construction years from 1923 to 1981 are eligible to compete. The organisers divide these into six basic groups and various special categories. The ŠKODA Sport entered the 2022 event in the second group alongside vehicles built between 1949 and 1956.

Each vehicle category competes in three 43-minute heats at the Le Mans Classic. After each half race, the cars pit for a driver change. The last leg begins with a classic Le Mans start: After the starting signal, the drivers sprint to their cars, jump behind the wheel, start their engines and hit the track.

The chequered flag is waved from the 43^rd minute of the race, as soon as the fastest car crosses the finish line. The final standings are determined by the number of laps completed and the time difference between them and the winner. The different technical specifications of the participating vehicles in the respective categories are also taken into account in a separate classification where a special coefficient is the determining factor. In another classification, the vehicles that drove in the various groups with the same starting numbers are aggregated according to teams.

In the packed Class 2 for cars from 1949 to 1956, the crew of Stanislav Kafka / Michal Velebný gave very balanced performances during qualifying and competition rides. The Czechs wiped the performance manko of the car on stronger or younger rivals with a technically clean ride, which earned them 47^th place out of 74 crews in the overall category ranking. In the order recalculated according to the coefficient influenced by the power and engine capacity, the Czech crew is even in 43^rd position. The victory was taken by the Jaguar D-Type from 1954.

Article source: www.skoda-storyboard.com

“Despite the many geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges, it’s clear that ŠKODA AUTO is crisis-proof. Our business is robust, demand for our models remains high and customers have stayed loyal to us in spite of the unavoidable waiting times. I thank them for this, and I’d also like to thank the entire team, who are demonstrating great resilience and flexibility in these times while doing everything they can to ensure our customers receive their new ŠKODA as quickly as possible. We expect the supply of semiconductors to further improve over the coming weeks and months. At the end of August, we’ll be presenting to the world our new brand identity that will reposition ŠKODA for the decade of transformation.”

ŠKODA AUTO CEO Klaus Zellmer

“The challenges we faced at the beginning of the year intensified in the second quarter. Nevertheless, ŠKODA is coping very well: Although significantly fewer vehicles were delivered to customers due to the supply bottlenecks, and prices for energy and raw materials have increased costs considerably, we were able to maintain the robust return on sales of 6.6%, in the second quarter. Through strong teamwork, we’ll continue to address the challenges, especially the global supply chain disruptions and the impact of war in Ukraine. We are therefore consistently pursuing our NEXT LEVEL EFFICIENCY+ cost and efficiency programme.”

ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Finance and IT Christian Schenk

“We can look back on an extremely challenging first half of the year. In addition to the semiconductor shortage and coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine has had a particularly strong impact on us: In Russia, our second most important market, we suspended vehicle production at our Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod plants until further notice and halted all exports to the country. In addition, a fire at one of our suppliers forced us to stop production of our best-selling OCTAVIA at certain points over the last few months. However, we have now resumed production at full capacity. We are also optimistic about the global demand for our vehicles, which remains high. We are working tirelessly to process the backlog of orders and shorten waiting times for our customers.”

ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Sales and Marketing Martin Jahn

Article source: www.skoda-storyboard.com

“The Tour de France Femmes is shining the spotlight on top international women’s cycling this year. Through our support as the main partner, we would like to actively contribute to this new event rapidly unfolding its great potential. The goal must be for the Tour de France Femmes to become firmly established in the calendar of the international cycling community in the coming years.”

Martin Jahn, ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Sales and Marketing

The Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT will commence on Sunday 24 July against the spectacular backdrop of Paris: At the Eiffel Tower, 144 women in 24 teams will take to the track. The race leads through eastern France in eight stages covering a total distance of 1,029 kilometres and concludes on 31 July at La Super Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges mountains. The director of the Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT is the former cyclist Marion Rousse.

ŠKODA AUTO is supporting the cycling event, which is being held in this form for the first time, as the official main sponsor and vehicle partner. The company is providing the organisers and teams with more than 50 service and support vehicles; the fleet includes the OCTAVIA as well as the SUPERB iV with plug-in hybrid drive. In addition, ŠKODA AUTO is sponsoring the green jersey for the leader of the points classification – just like in the men’s Tour de France.

ŠKODA campaign ‘You have to love it. We all do’ and Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT NFTs
ŠKODA is supporting the Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT and the Tour de France with the campaign ‘You have to love it. We all do.’ This includes TV commercials, social media activities on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram as well as on the company’s website www.welovecycling.com. This is where cycling fans can find exciting stories and information about the two events as well as a competition with four weekly prize rounds. Prizes include trips to the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT, a signed green jersey, bicycles, cycling equipment and a subscription to the fitness app Strava.

As the main partner of the Tour de France Femmes avec ZWIFT, ŠKODA AUTO is also issuing its own Non Fungible Tokens (NFT), limited to 30 for each stage. The eight designs, which will be published ahead of the race on weareridinghistory.io, were created by Czech artist Ilona Polanski. The NFT for each upcoming stage will also be posted on WeLoveCycling’s Twitter account. Collectors can find out on this website how to gain the exclusive Non-Fungible Tokens, which are offered for free via the energy-efficient Solana blockchain platform.

As the ‘engine of cycling’, the company supports the Tour de France and the Tour of Spain (‘Vuelta’), as well as the amateur race L’Étape, among others. Under the umbrella of the Tour de France, the worldwide racing series enables ambitious amateur cyclists to follow a race stage. In addition, bicycles and cycling accessories are part of the car manufacturer’s extended product range.

Article source: www.skoda-storyboard.com

The first automobile from Mladá Boleslav ever developed by engineer Václav Laurin’s team was presented to the public by the Laurin & Klement brand back in 1905. The legendary L&K VOITURETTE A featured an open wooden body which had no windscreen and no doors. Later, manually formed sheet metal parts were affixed to the wooden frame with small nails. The car industry was still using this method half a century later.

11 July 1952 saw a major leap in manufacturing technology. The switch from wooden to metal bodies meant that the carpenters responsible for building wooden body frames had to turn to building transport boxes for vehicle exports. The new ŠKODA 1200 ‘Sedan’ was the first model with an all-steel pontoon construction and integrated mudguards, which enhanced the interior space and increased passive safety. The smooth and rounded surfaces also made servicing easier.

Development work on the new ŠKODA model began as early as 1948, with the first prototype being built a year later. Other versions soon followed, including the versatile STW (station wagon) estate version with a folding rear seat. A prototype with an open body was also developed.

The ŠKODA 1200 ‘Sedan’ represented an evolution of the chassis concept with a central tubular frame. This was forked at the front and could thus accommodate a petrol engine with OHV valve control and other innovative components, such as wet cylinder liners. The rear wheels with independent suspension were driven via a synchronised four-speed gearbox. The car reached a top speed of 105 km/h and consumed 10 litres of fuel per 100 km.

The father of the ‘Sedan’
Among the most prominent figures in the area of body construction at the time was Josef Velebný (1906-1989). He had been working at the car plant in Mladá Boleslav since 1925 and headed the body design department from 1946. This was also when systematic research and development in the field of aerodynamic optimisation began, resulting in higher top speeds and lower fuel consumption. In addition, the vehicles were quieter and the bodywork stayed cleaner on the roads. At that time, research was conducted using wooden models at a scale of 1:5 and 1:10 in a wind tunnel with a diameter of 1.8 metres. The only facility of this kind at the time was at the Aviation Research and Testing Institute in Prague-Letňany. ŠKODA first tested the ŠKODA 1101/1102 ‘Tudor’ models there, but the main focus was on the ŠKODA 1200.

Thanks to its new body, the car benefited from a low kerb weight of just 1,050 kilograms, which was comparable to the weight of the older, much smaller ŠKODA RAPID OHV model. The five-seater ‘Sedan’ had a partitioned luggage compartment with a separately accessible spare wheel and a tool kit that was mandatory at the time. The four doors also concealed the sills so that the passengers’ clothes would not get dirty when getting in and out. Among other things, having the gearstick mounted on the steering column helped to improve the active safety; the driver only had to take their hand off the steering wheel briefly when changing gears. At the same time, they enjoyed more legroom because the gearstick had been moved from the centre tunnel.

The advantages of an all-steel body were not only evident in the notchback version but also in light commercial vehicles. Production of these began in 1952 at the Vrchlabí plant. At the Kvasiny site, ambulance versions were built, with room for two stretchers as well as the crew. At the beginning of 1953, the range was expanded to include the practical ŠKODA 1200 STW estate car with a one-piece, side-opening rear door. Some of the fold-down seats were only accessible from the right-hand side of the vehicle to allow for a stiffer body. In the two-seater version, the estate offered a 1,750 mm long, 1,380 mm wide loading area, which measured 990 mm between the wheel arches.

The ŠKODA 1200 ‘Sedan’ underwent continuous modernisation. The adaptations optimised the body strength and reduced the interior noise. The innovations also included modern indicators, which replaced the earlier turn signals. The updated ŠKODA 1201 model with a more powerful engine started rolling off the line at the beginning of 1956. It had an output of 45 hp (33.1 kW) at 4,200 rpm. Production of the 1200/1201 series came to an end in autumn 1961 after 67,071 vehicles had been built, of which around 27,000 had notchback bodywork and around 15,000 were estates, with the remaining units being commercial vehicle versions.

Article source: www.skoda-storyboard.com