Cheers for clearing that up: didn't think you were having a pop at me but I really would have liked this car.I am glad some dedicated people are snapping them up:thumbup:

They friends of yours Skofast? In any case, if they are on here snaps of the restoration would be good to see. I really must get over to Czech some day!

Edited 27 May, 200917 yr by Matt Bodycombe

The guy who bought the cabrio is a good mate, the Sport buyer is a mate of his who I know fairly well, and they took a good English-speaker along for his language skills and for an extra shovel-hand to dig the Sport out of the ground !

I will get all resto snaps as the last owner would like to see some as well, will post some stuff as it comes in.

Forget 'some day', do it now. You've got a Furbie VRS, you'd be there before you could say 'papieren,bitte'. Combine with a trackday at Brno or Most, Skud museum, factory tour, goulash with dumplings, glass of Plzen or Budvar. I've been visiting since '92 - the country which I visited for Skud reasons and loved so much no longer exists, it's been EU-ized and changed beyond recognition. For you, take away the car interest and it now might not look much different from many other countries but I saw it when it was barely improved from the '89 revolution which meant unchanged, unloved and un-cared-for for 40 years of the communist era. For normal folk, that wasn't how they would have wanted things but the ability do do anything about it was largely out of their hands.

From the car enthusiast perspective I used to notice the changes when I visited here twice a year or more but with gaps inbetween, but now after six years here things slip by unnoticed mostly. The dozens of blocks of flats close to the Skoda factory have long carparks outside them and I remember there used to be Estelles and Favorits as far as the eye could see. Now when I drive in and around Boleslav, maybe 50% of all the cars I see are Fabias I or II, rear-engined cars live out in the villages more or sit in town garages of old folk and only come out at weekends, they're owned by people whose living standards have dropped significantly.

I'm rambling....you should visit, see the tourist stuff in Praha, it's stunning but remember it's no more representative of Czech than Trafalgar Square is of Britain. Get out-and-about.

End of Czech Tourist Board broadcast

dam it.

if i'd seen this thread sooner. my corrado project wont be in the workshop for much longer and that 130 was just what i was looking for.

bugger!

Will have to pluck up the courage and do a European tour and visit. Always been worried about driving on right in case I had a crash, plus insurance and all the bumpf you have to have in the car.Having said that the car would give so much freedom!

I agree with you about Prague: lovely city but too full of stag crews: I would like to get out into the sticks.

Yes it is a shame about the modern situation with capitalism and the EU and it has led to straightened circumstances for some: a shame. I too would have longed for the old days. I don't know whether you know him Skofast but got an old Top Gear mag from around 1994 and they did a feature on the old rally team leader and development engineer (older chap with a beard). He was commuting from MB to Milton Keynes once a month in a Favorit and expressed a cautious optimism about the future.

Anyway great that this car is going to get some love and attention:thumbup:

I don't remember the article or mag, but there few folk who would have been doing that journey so regularly. A guy possibly close to retirement, grey/silver hair/beard/moustache ? That's Ladislav ('Larry') Pakosta. In Skoda GB red-white-and-blue days he was the factory's man in Kings Lynn, ie pretty much having a last word status over most of what went on. Nowadays he's on the organising side of Rallye Bohemia and I think he used also to be a big noise in dvelopment here in MB but never worked in Motorsport.

He did several test drives MB-MK in the Felda diesel when it was new, setting incredibly good journey times for the car's spec along with ludicrously low fuel consumption. Top bloke but at the end of the day a died-in-the-wool old school commie !

That's the bloke! Must dig out the mag: around 1995. He was talking about VW and the future, was commuting over here in a Felly.