Reg and Eileen Clarke bought a Skoda Octavia in 1952. The purchase was something of a compromise because Reg had planned to buy an English car but the waiting list was three months long. That was the way it was in 1952, wartime production had wound down, new car production had just started.

The Czech-made Skoda was a strong little car, made we were told, from German Army scrap metal hauled in from the Pripyet Marshes battlefield in the Ukraine. The Skoda had independent suspension all round, a wind-out front windscreen that leaked and the rear seats folded down giving access to the boot. It had a revolutionary lubrication system. An additional pedal was pressed every 1000 miles to lubricate all ball joints.

Reg and Eileen, my parents, had four children and the Skoda seemed to carry all of us and tow a caravanette with little effort. As an eight year old I could find only two design faults in the car. It had a radiator blind designed for cold European winters that I wound up over the radiator one warm Melbourne day. The engine and my father came to the boil very quickly. The other shortcoming was the tail light switch. It was a toggle switch beside the rear tail light. I could jump out of the car at traffic lights, turn on the tail light and be back inside before the lights turned green.

I recall we picked up our new Royal Blue Skoda from the dealer in LaTrobe St, Melbourne one exciting Friday night. In those days cars were imported in large pine boxes. Dad asked the dealer if he could have the box. No problem. That box became the car’s garage at our home. Recycling? Not exactly. In those days you never threw anything away.

And now Skodas are back. I must check to see if they’ve ironed out those design faults.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 12:29 am and is filed under Then and now. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.