Today we sit at the cutting edge of motoring, but getting here has been an arduous journey. There have been many diversions, pitfalls and breakdowns on the way, and quite a few wrong turns. There were stretches of the trip which will be fondly remembered, and periods which will be spoken of only in hushed tones. Join me now as we revisit another footnote in the long story of Car. Welcome back to The Carchive.
Last week we were gasping at disbelief at how the ’98 Buick Riviera was marketed squarely at the grey dollar. Today we head back sixteen years to look at Skoda’s improved range for ’82, which held a very different appeal.


“You’re looking at Britain’s top value for money car. And now the new 1982 Skodas are better equipped than ever”
Rising from the ashes of an abortive alliance with Wartburg to replace the 353 model and Skoda’s old 100/110 series at a stroke, the new for ’76 Type 742 may have been bodily all new, but mechanically all was pretty damn similar to what had gone before. Around 1981 the range, known as Estelle, was promoted to Super status and enjoyed a raft of subtle improvements
The roster of juicy bits’n pieces that Skoda were justly proud of included “the latest” rack and pinion steering, British radial-ply tyres, Servo-assisted, dual-circuit brakes and suspension modifications, for reasons which will be mentioned in a minute.

“Rally proven reliability, you can’t beat it”
Skoda had a clear competitive edge in international rallying with the Estelle. The handling shortcomings of the swing-axle rear suspension which could be absolutely lethal in inexpert hands translated into a brilliantly mobile rear end when on loose surfaces. Oversteer was available on demand when it was needed. The trouble was that said oversteer was also somewhat dominant when it was least expected.
“You’ll find more space in a Skoda than some cars costing twice or three times the price”
Completely true, this. The Skoda Estelle had far more interior room than the Ferrari 308 of the same year. On the UK market the Ford Escort-sized Skoda wouldn’t even put put a Fiesta sized dent in your finances, and this was central to the appeal of the car in this country.
It was unfairly considered as a direct rival to the Lada 1200 series; unfairly because this was emphatically not a car based on cheapened second-hand Fiat engineering. No, though there was some Renault influence, this car was Czech from the ground up.

“This is the top of the Skoda range, the car that took the Class 1 win in the Lombard RAC rally, unmodified.”
In Communist Skoda terms the 120LSE truly was a sybaritic machine. The 1.2 litre engine was rated at the full 58hp thanks to a twin-choke carburettor. There was an oil cooler and a rev counter to monitor all that grunt, and stylish alloy wheels to roll on.
Inside you could recline on fabric trimmed seats while listening to the latest Ultravox release on cassette, or on AM radio. And you could be sure that envious onlookers knew of your expensive purchase thanks to the colour-matched (er, black) vinyl roof, and tinted glass sunroof.

“The first Skodas were built over 80 years ago in Czechoslovakia, a land of hard snowy winters and rough testing terrain.”
At the time of the release of this brochure the UK import operation of for Skoda was based in Kings Lynn on the Norfolk coast. Here, arriving cars went through a programme of optimization for the UK market, including the fitment of Kangol seatbelts and British tyres in place of the Barum originals.
Today it’s increasingly difficult to imagine Skoda as the nationalised company that was stifled by an unsupportive, indifferent communist government for all those years. Post War, despite the excellence of Czech engineering, restrictions in investment meant an entire list of “might have beens”.  There were endless prototypes, many of which would have been production ready, all abandoned because of a lack of support from on high.
That the 105 / 120 series that the Super Estelle was a part of was anything like competitive was some tribute to the success of the original design. Mechanically there was little fundamental change since the early ’60s.
Still. the mindlessly optimistic regard a good, well preserved rear-engined Skoda as being a cut-price alternative to a Porsche 911.
(All images are of original manufacturers publicity materials. Copyright remains property of, we assume, VW Group. Skodas today are excellent, reliable, respectable machines. I miss the old, ill-handling, quirky ones)