Retro Stories by David Burrell
– – –
In a quiet corner of the 1966 Geneva Motor show was the Skoda stand. The Czechoslovakian manufacturer had survived through two world wars and was now under communist control, but that did not stop it from turning out interesting cars.
While all the attention at Geneva was being lavished on the Lamborghini Miura, Skoda used the show to quietly debut its small, rear engine, two door pillarless coupe, the 1000 MBX.
Yes, pillarless. As in Detroit-inspired pillarless.
It was based on Skoda’s more mundane four door sedan and featured a 998cc motor. The output was 38 kW (52 hp).
It is a real wonder that the team at Skoda were allowed to develop a coupe by their communist overlords.
Here was a car built at the height of the Cold War which embodied all the styling pizzazz of the automobiles produced by those lap dogs of capitalism in Detroit.
The 1000MBX was not a practical car to use on the collective farm, comrade. No hauling potatoes and cow dung in this little rig. This was a self-indulgent car by communist standards.
This was a car in which you rolled down the windows and flaunted its westernised and opulent pillarless design, as you nonchalantly motored by those other folk, toiling in the fields for the greater good.
Using old VW underpinnings, the little coupe sold only 2517 units during its three-year production run. But, like so many automotive off-beats, the 1000MBX now has a cult status in Europe.
