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Skoda Home Country: 
Czech Republic
The company actually started as Laurin & Klement with Vaclav Laurin & Vaclav Klement producing first bicycles, then motorbikes and cars. Only financial difficulties after world war 1 resulted in a merger with the steel industries group Skoda Industries and the Skoda name was adopted as brand name. However without Laurin & Klement, Skoda Industries would have never started to produce cars.
Skoda may be always regarded as the poor team of the WRC and remembering where they come from and what their background is, this may be right. After all the Czech Republic is one of the Eastern European countries with a communist background rather than free economic market not that long ago. But for the same reason, the pure fact that they are here, and not only that, but that they are actually regular points finishers, is the more a testimony of their strong enthusiasm and character. There certainly is no shortage of both, enthusiasm and character as Skoda’s motorsport history started in 1901, over 100 years ago. And although they were into motorbike races at first, car rallies have been part of their activity nearly since the beginning.
Nowadays still everybody seems to remember Skoda taking part in rallies with little RWD rear engined cars and good for respectable class wins. But in fact in the 1960s the Skoda 1000MB and 1100MB were not that far off the norm, nor was another rear engined car of that time, called the Octavia! In fact from their layout there were similarities between the Skodas and i.e. the famous R8 Gordini and Simca Rallye. Further, the Skodas were certainly sophisticated cars compared to what some of the opposition came up with, just remember the rear engined NSU Prinz or the 2-stroke engined DKW and Wartborg – at least Skoda had proper engines. However, for their country's political background Skoda kept producing rear engined RWD cars until 1988, decades longer than all other car manufacturers. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Skoda seemed to struggle keeping up with the way modern technology went, which couldn’t be helped for the situation the CZ found themselves in, but in that situation they did more than most of even today’s big firms could have ever coped with. In the 1980s Skodas had a 1.3 litre rear engine which looked antique, but you would reconsider such judgement quickly at the finish line as Skodas never seemed to break down and they often managed to get in or at least close to the top10 overall, even in group B days. It is not without reason the Czechs are regarded as some of the most eager engineers there are. Go to central European touring car teams and you will be surprised how many of them have already worked with Czech engineers and mechanics and give them the best references you could imagine. Skoda surely had their fans as well, high profile fans at that and not only within the CZ. So was i.e. Norwegian John Haugland an absolute top star driver talent at the time, but he somehow refused to compete in anything else but a Skoda. To the day John Haugland has a reknown ice driving school and to the day he is a loyal admirer of Skoda.
In the 1990s the situation for Skoda and their country changed dramatically. Of course you can’t expect miracles overnight. This as well has good aspects however, since Volkswagen bought themselves into Skoda but this did not make Skoda give up their unique character in any big way. So Skoda still rallied 1.3 litre cars and soon 1.5 and 1.6, but by now they were FWD, they were of a modern layout, but they did in no way lose their sturdiness and efficiency. In 1994 Skoda still competed with the Favorit 136L and amazingly with it won the 2 Litre World Cup. One highlight that just seems typical of Skoda was the RAC Rally 1996. This was no full WRC event that year, but nevertheless with entries such as Armin Schwarz & Juha Kankkunen in works Toyota Celica and full works F2 teams of Renault, Nissan and Seat. But it was Skoda weather with virtually snow blizzards and Stig Blomqvist managed to come 3rd overall(!) on that event with a little Skoda Felicia 1600 Kit Car!
When in 1997 Skoda then moved on to an Octavia 2000 Kit Car, this car did not seem to fit into the frame. Not that it was a bad car, it just was rather big – too big – for an F2 car and it seemed strange that out of all companies it was the traditional giant killer Skoda to come out with the biggest F2 car of the lot. It wasn’t the biggest success, though. But by 1999 Skoda came with a proper WRCar. This was incredible, only 10 years earlier nobody would have dared to dream of an A8 or WRCar coming out of former communist Eastern Europe. Now it was there in the shape of the big Skoda Octavia again. The Octavia may not have won a WRC rally, but Skoda certainly has settled in well and the Octavia WRC has scored podiums, which i.e. Hyundai never managed! It speaks volumes that even many of the opposition regard Skoda’s engine as one of the strongest there is, while the Octavia’s main downfall seems to have been the transmission which ironically is an old Subaru system purchased through Prodrive in the project's early days. Now we have the much more conveniently sized and again more modern Fabia WRC and things turn ever more exciting, not only for Skoda themselves but quite likely even too exciting for some of Skoda’s competition! Or this could have been, it could be said that the Fabia could have impressed more in the few events it did in 2003, however a change in the rules that made the 2004 season far more expensive sadly forced Skoda out of competing a full season.
Update: Eventually the Fabia WRC program was a disappointment following the successes of the Octavia. Even though the Fabia was of a much better basic configuration, increased influence of Volkswagen management seemed to hinder Skoda's progress in motorsport more than help it. But also ever increasing cost in WRC with the rules dictating teams to go to 16 rounds, often in locations that are of no marketing interest for Skoda and others, eventually made Skoda pull out of the WRC. Now Skoda is working on an S2000 version of the Fabia. Insiders believe this is the most exciting Skoda project to date, as the Fabia S2000 project is again more Czech's own, with less Volkswagen influence.
2009 then becomes a big year for Skoda. In the WRC Rally Norway P-G Andersson wins a number of stages outright in a private Fabia WRC. In line with i.e. Kopecky's 5th place overall on Rallye Deutschland 2007 this seems to confirm Skoda fans blames of ill, German influenced management and driver choices slowing the car, the Fabia WRC was better than most believe. Also early 2009 the Fabia S2000 project starts with Juho Hänninen dominating the Rallye Monte Carlo until a day3 crash. Still early 2009 we note that rumours of Skoda splitting from Volkswagen to return to independancy will not die down.
COLOURS & TYRES:
On the old rear engined cars Skoda was often having a distinct white and light blue with a little red. But since the Favorit and throughout Felicia and Octavia, they use a combination of mainly white and a strong green that easily identifies them. And with the Fabia add black to that. Come Skoda’s Fabia S2000 from the 2009 IRC season, we still have a layout of green, red, black on a white car, but the green is now a very distinct bright metallic.
In the rear engine days Skoda had no real tyre contract most of the time, but often used Dunlop or Michelin. Since the Favorit they have always been on Michelin.
REGISTRATIONS:
Czech reg plates are amongst the more difficult ones to identify and trace. See our general registration guide as to why this is. Skoda is based in Mlada Boleslav, therefore the 3-letter-block of the reg plates would start with MB. However this system has changed in 2003.
| Year | Class | Place | Manufacturer | Events | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 IRC | Super 2000 | 2nd. |  Skoda (77pts) |
12 | |
| 2006 WRC | World Rally Car | 6th. | Skoda (24pts) |
16 | |
| 2005 WRC | World Rally Car | 6th. | Skoda (22pts) |
16 | |
| 2003 WRC | World Rally Car | 5th. | Skoda (23pts) |
14 | |
| 2002 WRC | World Rally Car | 5th. | Skoda (9pts) |
14 | |
| 2001 WRC | World Rally Car | 5th. | Skoda (17pts) |
14 | |
| 2000 WRC | World Rally Car | 7th. | Skoda (8pts) |
14 | |
| 1999 WRC | World Rally Car | 7th. | Skoda (6pts) |
14 | |
| 1994 WRC | Group A | 8th. | Skoda (4pts) |
10 | |
| 1979 WRC | Open | 16th. | Skoda (6pts) |
12 | |
| 1977 WRC | Open | 18th. | Skoda (7pts) |
11 | |
| 1975 WRC | Open | 16th. | Skoda (4pts) |
10 | |
| 1973 WRC | Open | 17th. | Skoda (3pts) |
13 | |
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