Unusual Sighting-Skoda

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Driving home on Rt95 N in North Carolina a few days ago we come up on an unusual small car. I could tell it was European from a ways back, then saw it was a Skoda. I’ll admit surprise as a Skoda hatch is one of the least likely vehicles I would have expected to see. At first I thought why bother w the import, but then I thought well that is cool, he probably won’t ever see himself coming around the corner. Hats off to him!
 
could also be an older VW that someone Rebadged...like the guys with pontiac GTO's and G8's importing the badges/bumpercover/etc to make them back into Holdens...
from my understanding, many Skoda Models are simply the prior generation VW rebadged/different name....
I could be way off though...
 
from my understanding, many Skoda Models are simply the prior generation VW rebadged/different name....
I could be way off though...
all their models are reheated VW platforms but none of them look exactly like a VW.

this is the first gen superb, a deformed passat
 

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Good thing you mentioned that because I was definitely saying it wrong. I had no idea of them being part of Volkswagen.


couple years back, Car Throttle Bought a 431,000 mile Diesel Skoda Octavia, did a few tests, interviewed the previous owner, and did a full restoration with help from Skoda. this it the first of 8 videos
That Gen of Octavia was Clearly Jetta Based.
 
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all their models are reheated VW platforms but none of them look exactly like a VW.

this is the first gen superb, a deformed passat
remember, to import to the US properly, unless it's a Foreign serviceman "temporarily"( a year or 2) stationed on a US base, it has to be at least 25 years old,
so the newest Skoda Model year it could be is 1995-96.
and it's 25 years based on the vehicle build date, not the model year.
and looking at Skoda Auto's Wikipedia page, the only model they made those years was the Felicia...
did it look like this:
Skoda_Felicia_outside_Robinson.JPG


 


couple years back, Car Throttle Bought a 431,000 mile Diesel Skoda Octavia, did a few tests, interviewed the previous owner, and did a full restoration with help from Skoda. this it the first of 8 videos
That Gen of Octavia was Clearly Jetta Based.

Great video. Yes definitely Jetta based no doubt.
 
Good thing you mentioned that because I was definitely saying it wrong. I had no idea of them being part of Volkswagen.
Skoda split off into two during the 1980s just before the fall of the Soviet Union. The Czechs weren’t associated with mother Russia but it accounted for a good chunk of their economy. A transportation division that built buses and metro trains, and the car division which became part of VAG’s plan for world domination. San Francisco’s Muni and Dayton, OH ran a sizeable fleet of Skoda trolley buses - made in Czechoslovakia but assembled by a defense contractor in Maryland to meet Buy America requirements(much like the Hungarian-built NABI buses that ruled the streets of Oakland/LA/New Jersey that were finished in Alabama).


https://www.ttmg.org/muni-skodaa.html
 
I believe it was an 80’s Skoda Favorit. It had a distinctive small plastic lip on the rear like some pictures I have just found. Knowing the effort involved in importing a RoW vehicle, this choice surprised me but it is certainly rare here.
 
That is an amazing story. I've seen/read similar stories/vehicles doing that half million to a million miles but never about a full resto on any of them. I ended up watching the whole series of videos and it was quite entertaining.

I tried doing this with one car but never made it due to living in NYS. We did though put on 340,000ish miles on a 1988 Honda Accord LX w/2.0L 2bbl carb & 4 psd auto over 18 yrs. But rust took its toll in the structure which made the car unsuitable for public roads and would no longer pass state inspection.
 
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