“How much more time have you got?” asks Michal Velebný, Skoda Depository’s head honcho, whereas we stare at a near-perfect light-green 110 L Rallye that has simply arrived from a life in Cyprus.
An intriguing query, and one to which I already know the reply as I take a look at the Czech Republic-based Skoda rep staring each at his watch and my method. “About five, maybe 10 minutes,” I lie – nevertheless it’s a fib I might not lengthy remorse.
Velebný ushers us out of his workshop and guides us by the underbelly of Skoda’s treasure-filled Mladá Boleslav museum – which, within the constructing of the automobile maker’s previous manufacturing unit, homes greater than 300 vehicles and pre-Skoda Laurin & Klement bikes – to the place a big wood door stands.
A padlock is opened and we enter an enormous room of scattered steel, representing the 118-year historical past of the Czech model. This is a room not many, bar choose employees, set foot in. Not even the flush delegates get a glance in right here. The mud backs that up.
“Sorry for the mess,” apologises Velebný, whereas pointing to a half-restored Sixties Formula 3 automobile and a covered-up, chrome grille-clad Popular Monte Carlo. Where we’re standing is considered one of many rooms that make up Skoda’s depository, a set of distinctive, traditional and uncommon gems collected by the Czech producer.
There are nearly 250 vehicles housed inside the museum (that quantity doesn’t embody the autos on present in the principle constructing), both polished up and on show within the prototypes and sports activities vehicles depository or wherever they’ll match within the previous museum and its outbuildings. So huge is the gathering {that a} additional 80 vehicles are additionally saved off-site.
“This car we restored from a burnt-out chassis,” says Velebný, standing over considered one of two 1958 1100 Coupés. “The driver got out the back window after it crashed.” This one is fitted with a particular 91bhp OHC engine – a once-feared 555kg sports activities automobile so superbly designed that it may simply be badged by considered one of Italy’s best.
Previously owned by Hanus Hrabánek, father of Skoda Motorsport director Michal Hrabánek, it’s the solely instance that is still in a roadworthy state. Velebný was one of some to steer the restoration from a fire-damaged wreck. “It is a special car,” he provides.
There is one other automobile he’s eager to point out us: a 1928 Skoda Hispano-Suiza 25/100 KS. Limited to simply 100 models worldwide, fitted with a 6.6-litre aircraft-derived six-cylinder engine and weighing in at round two tonnes, the monstrous-looking automobile – considered one of only a handful to have survived to at the present time – sits on a ramp within the nook of the room.
