Miguel Sánchez
Although surprising, there are certain similarities between how Ferruccio Lamborghini started making sports cars and Václav Klement bicycles. Obviously, we are moving in very different geographical and temporal coordinates, but united by the same rage that comes from being aggrieved. In the case of the Italian, the anger came from the typical arrogance with which Enzo Ferrari treated many of his workers and clients. While in that of the Czech, everything came from the lack of attention received when requesting spare parts from the German factory for his bicycle. Thus, while Lamborghini's anger led to the 350 GT, Klement's made him found his own bicycle company.
However, the character of this young Czech businessman was so restless that he could not focus on a single form of transport. Therefore, after having worked as a bookseller, he founded Slavia in the last years of the 1898th century. The one that began as a bicycle factory to, around XNUMX, launch the first Czech-made motorcycle. In this way, the foundations of a company focused on mass production were laid. Which in 1905 he already took out his first car under the name of Laurin & Klement. After this, just four years later trucks, ambulances and other industrial vehicles were added. All this to become the largest automotive manufacturer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the moments before the outbreak of the First World War.
However, the war shock caused by the conflict forced production to focus on war material. Highlighting aviation engines. In the same way and manner that Alfa Romeo or Hispano-Suiza did in their respective countries. For all these reasons, although Laurin & Klement was conditioned by an unexpected change of direction in its commercial activity, at the same time could prove to be a company with high levels of technological development. From then on, due to post-war imbalances, Klement and his partner Václav Laurin sold the company to the Skoda family in 1925. However, and before this, Hispano-Suiza and what became Skoda had already contacts had been made.
HISPANO-SUIZA AND SKODA, AWAY BUT UNITED
Given the quality of the aviation engines signed by Hispano-Suiza, their fame spread throughout much of Europe during the XNUMXs. Thus, In 1922, the Spanish brand signed an agreement with the Czech company Laurin & Klement for the latter to manufacture, under license, engines of the first. However, the demand for aircraft engines was not the same as during the First World War. For this reason, the Czech firm decided to focus most of its energies on motorcycles. But also cars and even tractors.
And it is that, after all, of all the countries that emerged in Central Europe after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the young Czechoslovak Republic was the most prosperous economically. What's more, the establishment of a liberal democracy headed by Tomás Masaryk favored the establishment of an incipient middle class capable of expanding the private mobile fleet. Thanks to this, the climate was prone to the mass production of automobiles. But also to that of some other much more exclusive ones aimed at the country's elites.
Therefore, in 1924 the Czech house asked Hispano-Suiza for the manufacturing license of the imminent T49. A model that would be presented in 1925, pretending to be an access model below the excellent H6. However, curiously, the Spanish brand refused the license, offering instead the 6 H1922B. Based on the aviation-derived V8 signed by Marc Birkigt with 6,5 liters of displacement, this model capable of delivering 135CV was considered to be one of the best luxury cars at the time. And interestingly, also one of the first models made under the Skoda name after the purchase of Laurin & Klement in 1925.
INTRODUCTION OF NATIONAL VARIANTS
One of the most interesting consequences in the manufacture of automobiles under license is the appearance of national variants. In this way, while Volkswagen do Brasil produced the SP2, in Spain both FASA and SEAT created some variants. Always on the designs arrived from France and Italy respectively. A fact that also happened in the history between Hispano-Suiza and Skoda. because although the first H6Bs assembled in Czechoslovakia were made with parts from the brand's factory on the outskirts of Paris, in the second series Skoda introduced its own elements.
Thus, in these vehicles created between Hispano-Suiza and Skoda, a new front axle and even a new assisted braking system were introduced. Different from the one originally designed by Hispano-Suiza, but with the virtue of applying force progressively according to the intensity of braking. Furthermore, from an advertising point of view, these models in which the names Hispano-Suiza and Skoda appeared together on the grill had an excellent ambassador in the figure of Tomás Masaryk. Head of government with great prestige among the population. He ruled from 1918 to 1935, four years before the Nazi occupation of the country at the dawn of World War II.
From the point of view of the production of these models between Hispano-Suiza and Skoda, it is known that it was active until 1929. From it slightly less than 170 units were detached. Unfortunately very few of them are preserved today. Since to the disasters of the Second World War we must add the turbulent Czechoslovak postwar with the submission to the interests of the Soviet Union. However, the simple rescue of this story highlights the fluid business relationships given in motorsports at the time. And go, why not say it, a curious fact that will surely make us see differently from any Skoda that we can come across on a day-to-day basis.
Images: Skoda
