Hello everybody!

I´m restoring my grand mothers old 1979 Skoda 120 LS and I was wondering if it is still possible to find new or mint condition chrome bumpers?

I´m looking for the right hand front bumper half. The ones I have found here in Finland are all rusty (salting in the winter).

I have both rear halfs and left hand front (all new), but I´m still looking for the missing front half. Otherwise I´ll have to rechrome the bumper. Rechroming costs about 270 eur (£227) over here.

You can check out my project here: Skoda 120 LS 1979 project

Wow, that's a labour of love

They are very rare now.....you might beable to get them in CZ as there is an industry in old Skodas. I have a brand new set on my car that I may sell, but I havent decided yet. I will be using it mostly for competition so bumpers are extra unneeded weight.....but I dont know yet!

Super album! I really enjoyed it ... some quite artistic photos of the soul of Skoda ...

Thanks for the positive feedback! :yes:

I found a couple of bumpers from the Czech Republic, so I sent some emails. Both guys replied with nerozumiem... it means: Don´t understand. Thanks Google Translate. So there are parts to be found, but the language barrier is causing problems. I´ve ordered parts from the Czech Republic (a parts dealer), so I could ask if he could translate a letter for me.

I'm happy to translate for a good cause...

Edited 12 May, 201016 yr by 130 LSE

Nice to see the photographs....

One of the guys on here is a parts dealer in England,

but I believe he gets stock shipped ditrect from CZ if needed ... Jorily

Other people that you might wish to try ....

http://www.osttimer.de/

They're CZ but speak German & English too, I've bought stuff from them at a German parts fair.

Trust that helps .... Darren

the last time i saw crome bumpers for sale was on e-bay under boroskoda name

And I bought them!

What did you pay for the bumpers?

I sent an email to osttimer.de and they replied yesterday. They don´t have bumpers in stock, but they promised to try to find them somewhere else.

So I´m keeping my fingers crossed and hope they do.

I bought a bumper half that was in pretty good nick, so I will probably put that on the car when it is ready. But it has some rust on it, so that will not work well as I´m a pedant.

I polished it so the rust is now gone, but it will come back. I sprayed zinc paint on the inside of the 3 new bumper halfs, so I think they will not rust from the inside.

About £70 for the rear and about £100 for the front if I remember rightly. When I bid on the rear I did it with seconds to go and outbid someone. They were ready when the front one ended and had bid higher......I only just got in in time!!! Thats why it cost a lot more.

Hi.

I was not able to find the bumper from osttimer, but I found new original twin healights. Thanks for the tip! Jaroslav from osttimer promised to keep his eyes open and send me an email if he comes across a bumper.

The Skoda-project is now on track again. The front axle is almost ready. After that I´ll bolt it back on the car and then it´s off to the painter. New pics in the album. I had some problems with the upper wishbone bushes. We had to manufacture a special tool to get the metallic sleve into the bushing.

A couple of videos of my Skoda can be found on YouTube, heres one:

I´m trying to sound like a Czech on the videos. :p

At last I found a set of unused (old stock) front chrome bumpers for my car (from Germany). I had to pay 174 eur for them. I got the car back from the painter last week, so now the fun begins.

You can check out the latest images here

Wow been a long time since I have seen one of those: always had a soft spot for the Estelle: good luck!

Wow been a long time since I have seen one of those: always had a soft spot for the Estelle: good luck!

Glad to see someone restoring a chrome bumper Estelle. Hope that it brings you many, many years of happy motoring.

Nice project, great to see so many images.

Keep up the good work

New images can be found in the gallery. I have also added new videos of the Skoda.

Looks and sounds great

New images can be found in the gallery. I have also added new videos of the Skoda.

Wow, looking good!

The Skoda is ready. A short transformation video can be found

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Fantastic - a job well done!

Thumbs up! Great end to what looked like a super fun project... Massive fan of these old Skodas since a similar one was dumped in a carpark many years ago as a kid, down the road. Seeing one so well cared for and brought back to its original glory is fantastic!

Edited 19 May, 201115 yr by Skoda85

Thanks guys! It has been so much fun now to take the Skoda out on sunny days. It is a "museum car" now.

What I mean with "museum car" is the following. In Finland we have this thing called museum cars. They have to be over 30 years old and meet certain criteria. After a car has been approved as a museum car, you are allowed to drive it up to 30 days per year. No tax is paid and insurance fees are minimal (about 30 euros per year). Nobody keeps count of the days. It's basically a gentleman's agreement. I will drive the car from May to August. I will not be driving on rainy days, and there are a lot of rainy days in the finnish summer. So I think the 30 day limit will not be a problem for me.

Here you have an explanation of the Finnish Museum Car system a la Google Translate (the page has been translated from finnish, so the text is not perfect).

Now the Skoda does not want to shut down. I can remove the key from the ignition and it keeps going. The Skoda is like Herbie. It's probably the ignition barrel base. I'll have to replace it at some point. A short video of the Skoda aka Herbie.