my parents had 2 of these, yes 2 when i was about 9 years old and had them for 2 years untill the 1 decided to die( lovely beige colour and other nice orange) when we had our lift to school we had our reputation to think of, so had to get dropped off around the corner so no1 would see:O back then i would never have though id be a skoda owner, but would like to say im happy with the octavia vrs after having a toyota celica 1.8vvti, hyundai coupe se and the trusty old metro.

thought id bring this up as im in slovakia at the moment and seeing all these old skoda rapide/ felicias has brought back memories.-..there are hundreds of them but fair play to skoda, they must be 20 years old and still get about

Edited 24 July, 200916 yr by mike_vrs_sk
tried to upload photos

:)I was a bit "different" to most kids. Most kids had pics of Porsches and Ferraris ect on their bedroom walls, I had pics of rear engined Skodas. I was brought up with these cars and have always loved them. I simply didn't [and still don't] care that my mates didn't really understand. [i would say grew up but I never quite managed to grow up! ]. I never got an excesive amount of pee taking from others about it, even when I bought my first Skoda at 18 in 1990...a 2 year old Rapid 130 in Astra blue...only the usual jokes about skips and wheelbarrows! :P

My favourite Skoda joke is:

Q-What's the difference between a Skoda and a hedgehog?

A- The pricks are INSIDE the Skoda.

Certainly interesting to see how the brand image has changed over time.

Not sure if anyone else can think of any,

but I can't recall any current comedians slating any of the current bargain basement brands.

I suppose during the Cold War, it was all good propaganda to bash anything communist,

plus of course they would hardly be likely to sue for loss of sales, unlike today's global brands.

I suppose the Estelles stood out as the last rear engine saloons

& calling a 1.3 a Rapid was perhaps asking for trouble.

Although if you've ever followed a well piloted one down some twisties,

you'd be thinking the name was about right.

As to the reliability, well, there's no real figures to work from,

but I think that the owners fell into two broad stereotypes ....

those who bought Skoda after Skoda after Skoda without a hint of trouble

(I've met a lot of SOCGB members in that category) or ...

those that bought a cheap second hand car, ran it into the ground

& spent nothing on preventative maintenance

Anyway just my musings ... Darren

p.s. Mike, I see you're struggling to post up pictures.

Try opening a free photo hosting account with flickr, photobucket etc..

Then use the IMG tags to link to that location.

(Not as techie as it sounds)

I imagine the SOCGB to be akin to train spotters, talking in that really nasally voice?

I would agree with you Dave. I went to quite a posh school and my mate Alex had a 130 Estelle as a first car(we're talking around 96) and got a little bit of micky taking but silenced that with a demonstration of tail happiness on the country lanes around Meopham Kent in a few impromptu races. He left the front drivers for dead and I thought he had sold out when he replaced the 130 for a Favorit.

They are great little cars.

I imagine the SOCGB to be akin to train spotters, talking in that really nasally voice?

I don't really know if my voice is nasally or not?

However, I am both a trainspotter & a member of SOCGB.

heh, its funny... when I was younger me and a mate autotested an estelle and got the **** taken mercilessly (we got last laugh when he took the RWD championship from the beetles at the morcambe car club in it though )... I constantly get complements about my rapid now...

I imagine the SOCGB to be akin to train spotters, talking in that really nasally voice?

;)Yeah, we are all train spotters, collect stamps, wear slippers, smoke pipes and have beards! I'll be in the pub tonight in the snug playing dominos!:P:rofl:

That's not actually true, most of our members drive modern Skodas and are quite cool.

Out of curiosity, do you or anyone else reading this really believe that SOCGB is like you said?

Pictures by mike_vrs_sk - Photobucket

a few pics of some slovakian skodas! when i get back to uk will try see if the parents have sum old photos of the rapid days :-)

I imagine the SOCGB to be akin to train spotters, talking in that really nasally voice?

I cant do nasal, I have a broad Ulster accent and y'know, the reason I'm in the SOC and get on with the other members I've met is because as long as the car is OTR and not being abused/scrapped/left for dead, it's all good. Even the ones used for trialling are cool!

It's just the "usual" owners club type of person! People who will talk to you about the size of crankcase bolts and how they were different between two model years. That sort of person!

I attend a classic car show at Tredegar Park in Newport every year, and the place is full of them!

It's just the "usual" owners club type of person! People who will talk to you about the size of crankcase bolts and how they were different between two model years. That sort of person!

LOL, yeah I know the ones!

Interestingly the crankshaft main bearing bolts on the April '86 on cars had a different ......oh buggar, I'm doing it again, sorry!

I think there's a very fine line between necessary attention to detail that classic and older cars should receive when rennovated, and being anally-retentive about all the details to the exclusion of everyhting else !

Czechs have always been great improvisers with mechanical things, but at shows now there's a lot of 'experts' poking around and criticising the use of phillips/'pozi' screws on 50s cars and so on.

It happens to me too, when I'm out with my friend Mirek selling the aluminium mouldings we make for classics. Guy picks up a set of front wing side mouldings for Octavia/Felicia (50s/60s type !) - 'these have a slightly different v-profile and pressed pointed end to the originals!' - I handed him our carefully prepared three original factory mouldings - 'are these original?' 'Oh yes' - 'oh good, we've replicated perfectly the middle one, as you can see they're all different profiles and end shapes.We could copy all three but each would have to be much more expensive'.............He bought a set.

See, strange people!

Skodfast is very strange

Even skofast his older brother is strange too

Strange ? He's miraculous......i don't have an older brother !

and I'm not pedantic either, I just like things to be right !

I often had the mickey taken out of me for my parents owning skoda's. I could never see the problem myself and have owned 6 since I was 17. And yes I did have a Favorit poster on my wall instead of a Ferrari, and I belong to SOCGB - have yet to talk about crankcase bolts though!

...The p**s taking only comes from the ignorant badge conscious general British public. In western europe and to a very large extent central and eastern Europe Skoda have always been held with high regard. Even in Germany where the "build quality" brigade are out in force Skodas had a decent reputation.

All this crap about "I wouldnt be seen dead in a Skoda" or "Skoda are 50 years behind "us" in technology" or my favorite "Skoda only used to win thier race class because they were the only ones entered in it" blah blah blah is the most single minded snob like crap you will hear from joe public. Its all to do with the narrow minded view that the UK was some futuristic utopia compared to the land where Skodas came from, and "eastern europeans" in general were backward beings incapable of making a well put together car, far worse than anything longbridge ever came up with of course.

When comparing an old skud to say a Nova, Metro, Fiesta etc then comparing the price, the rear engined skud or the front engined favorit or felicia were actually a better buy as you could buy one new for the price of a secondhand UK mainstream marque in budget spec, and although not uptodate or filled ith electronics they were reliable, cheap to run an easy to fix.

Well, thats the rant over. I feel much better now lol

Good rant Mr Msport, I'm sure that you've just got quite a few people nodding with agreement at their screens.

I always find it amazing how Brits have craved American cars for their "cool image".

I suppose that could be put down to "cold war propaganda" & a constant diet of American TV shows.

The old RWD Octavias seem to be a revelation at shows, in terms of how people have reacted to such an old Skoda (from way before Jasper Carrot started the jokes). I'm sure people are expecting it to have "Flintstones foot power" rather than an internal combustion engine.

Someone i knew used to get dropped off to school down the road due to the parents both driving skodas ( a favorit estate and a black rapid cabrio with a hard top and T bar). I never had a problem with the skoda my mum picked me up in, even better was my dad picking me up in the Citroen Dyane we had, now that makes people look and i loved it.

Driving a rather modified skoda i was prepared for negative comments but only ever got one or two from people who frankly havent got a clue.

One comment made me laugh when someone shouted "Because you drive a skoda!" to me as i was sitting on the roof of a favorit with a freshly cooked headgasket in a cloud of steam at the side of the road. good times

My dad had two Estelle's when I was a kid (sky blue 120L A-reg and then a biege 130LSE D-reg). The 120L didn't have a radio and used to vibrate quite a bit between 40 - 50MPH. The 130LSE (complete with vinal roof, lift out sunroof and Phillips radio) was great.

My best memory was (my dad) overtaking a Ford XR3i on an uphill stretch of single-carriage A-road.

He then spoilt it all by buying a Volvo 340GL.

My dad had two Estelle's when I was a kid (sky blue 120L A-reg and then a biege 130LSE D-reg). The 120L didn't have a radio and used to vibrate quite a bit between 40 - 50MPH. The 130LSE (complete with vinal roof, lift out sunroof and Phillips radio) was great.

My best memory was (my dad) overtaking a Ford XR3i on an uphill stretch of single-carriage A-road.

He then spoilt it all by buying a Volvo 340GL.

heh... don't knock them volvo 340's either... with a bit of fettling they too are bloody good fun to hoon around in...

Ive had 3 Volvo 360 GLTs, great cars and most understated.

I love the Slovak skoda's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would love to take a Skoda 130 back to UK from here but I think the MOT would mean too much work.

Where in SK are you? I'm in Partizanske at the moment, look out for an english octavia if ya ever round this way.