125 years SKODA AUTO - Master Craftsmen

MASTER CRAFTSMEN Å KODA MOBIL SUPPLEMENT

EDITORIAL

Dear Škodians, “Driven by inventiveness – clever ideas since 1895”. This is ŠKODA’s brand essence. It has been shaped by generations of people who, with a great deal of passion, creativity and ingenuity, have shaped individual mobility to this day, while always focusing on customers and their needs.

This magazine describes and illustrates the development of selected professions at ŠKODA – from the founding days of Laurin & Klement to the present day. Among others, it gives former and current car body builders, toolmakers, designers, master painters and IT specialists a voice. The result is an exciting look behind the scenes that shows how, through their work, Škodians continue to breathe life into the brand essence “driven by inventiveness” to this day – 125 years after our company was founded.

Enjoy the reading!

Bernhard Maier

125 YEARS OF ŠKODA AUTO ŠKODA Mobil Supplement EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Tomáš Novotný EDITORIAL TEAM: Veronika Halešová, Zdeněk Vacek, Radka Vosáhlo, Kateřina Šulcová, Luděk Vokáč, Tomáš Michálek, Jindřich Novák ILLUSTRATIONS: Karolína Tomšejová PHOTOS: Jaroslav Soukup, ŠKODA AUTO archive GRAPHIC DESIGN AND PRODUCTION: Boomerang Communication DATE OF RELEASE: 24 July 2020

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

CONTENTS

4 BRAND’S UNIQUE HERITAGE

6 WOODWORKERS AND TINSMITHS 10 PAINTERS ON THE 12 FITTERS PRODUCTION LINE

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AND 18 FOREMEN APPRENTICES

TOOLMAKERS

AND DATA 26 ITTECHNICIANS

20 DESIGN ENGINEERS 28 ADVERTISING EXPERTS 32 TRADITIONAL OCCUPATIONS

BRAND’S UNIQUE HERITAGE

125 YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION The unique story of the Czech carmaker has been written by five generations of ŠKODA people who put their extraordinary skill, inventiveness and love for technology into their work. They have also managed to follow and address the changing needs of their customers.

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t the end of the 19th century, when Václav Laurin and Václav Klement founded their company in Mladá Boleslav, many companies that were being established in industrialised countries were dedicated to the production of various means of transport that would deal with individual mobility. Although the first vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine was introduced in Germany as early as 1885, improvements in technology and a significant expansion of motoring did not happen until the 20th century.

The often amusing little vehicles became fully fledged automobiles, and the automotive industry experienced its first boom despite many governments’ stand-offish attitude at the time. An incredible 485 new brands

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were established just in the United States between 1899 and 1909! Thanks to technical innovations – especially conveyor belts, which enabled mass production, lower costs and a lower final selling price – there was a change in the understanding of vehicle ownership.

Starting as a fad for the rich privileged classes, cars gradually became the most commonly used means of transport for the general population.

In the 21st century, the environment has become a priority due to the issue of climate change. Car manufacturers are focusing on innovations that take natural resources into account. The current period is marked by visionary work – individual mobility is expecting an even greater wave of technical innovations than what the last century produced.

You will find this and other gripping ŠKODA Mobil supplements in the special section at www.skodamobil.cz. They are also great to read on your mobile phone!

Carmaker tied to the region

The automotive industry has experienced rapid development over the past 125 years. Only a few original car manufacturers have remained – those that were able to adapt to changes. ŠKODA AUTO rightly belongs to the family of global carmakers that have the longest tradition and are still active today. It owes its extraordinarily long history to the unique quality of its products, which is based on the technical skill of the people who tied their careers to it and demonstrated their commitment to continuous improvement. It is the skilfulness, ingenuity and loyalty of ŠKODA’s employees that have always pushed the brand forward. Just like the factory, the cars and the customer requirements have been changing, and so have the jobs over the course of 125 years. In this supplement, we are trying to map out the development of some of them.

Mladá Boleslav has been the home of ŠKODA AUTO for 125 years, regardless of the product types the company has produced. It should be pointed out that the brand’s cars later rolled also off the lines in two other plants in Bohemia. In 1946, the plant in Vrchlabí strengthened the company’s production capacity, and the factory in Kvasiny joined three years later.

Both branch plants are still integral parts of ŠKODA AUTO, with Vrchlabí producing automatic gearboxes for the Group’s brands.

WOODWORKERS AND TINSMITHS

Woodworkers and tinsmiths spent many hours working on the body of the L&K model (1914)

EACH CAR BODY IS UNIQUE Until the early 1950s, woodworkers were among the carmaker’s busiest employees. The load-bearing framework – timber support – was covered, for example, with artificial leather and later solely with sheet metal.

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he body framework was mainly made of hardwood, such as ash, oak, maple or beech. Ash wood was the most suitable because of its strength (with low weight) and flexibility, as well as easy machinability and pliability. Initially, the timbering was nailed not with sheet metal panels but with boards made of poplar, linden or alder covered with Fabricoid, which is “artificial leather” or, more precisely, ground leather scraps with a binder. The floors were made of oak planks, and hardwood also came in handy for the felloes and spokes of wheels.

Not surprisingly, 100 years ago, wooden parts

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

made up a good quarter of a car’s weight.

Supports, ribs, reinforcements and partitions used to be connected with pins, battens, screws or glue, mainly of animal origin – for example, from ground horns. Experts from Mladá Boleslav were doing an extra precise job. They created mahogany cabinets, minibars and other gorgeous interior elements for luxury models.

And what did the old woodworkers’ equipment look like? Instead of computer-controlled CNC machine tools, they used vertical band and circular saws, milling machines, lathes, hand planes, chisels, rasps, sandpaper…

The lumber yard in the Kvasiny plant (around 1935)

A wheelwright working on spokes set in perimeter felloes (1914). During the L&K period, the wheelwright shop was part of the wood shop

1926

The new body shop allowed the start of the significantly more efficient series production The company headed for serial assembly by constructing a five-storey body shop in 1926 (today, it houses the ŠKODA Academy, including the VSME). Wood travelled from the basement warehouse to the dryer (its humidity could not exceed 10%) and then to the wood shop on the ground floor. The first floor consisted of upholstery and saddlery workshops, using almost exclusively natural materials: woollen fabrics, felt or pressed animal fur or horsehair, seagrass and the like. Timber supports for car bodies were assembled on the second floor. Next up, one floor above, was plating, which used thousands of nails – as in the case of attaching upholstery. Finally, car bodies were painted on the fourth floor.

It was only after World War I that felloe wheels with separately removable rims began to give way to sheet-metal discs. In the early 1930s, metal stampings eventually prevailed. Wooden floors and dashboards disappeared soon as well.

The steering wheel’s wooden rim was replaced with plastic.

1952

Timber supports are replaced with an all-metal body

The timbering itself became a thing of the past in 1952 with the advent of all-metal bodies for the ŠKODA 1200 Sedan. However, the woodworker workshops did not disappear as they produced transport boxes for the global export of complete or disassembled ŠKODA cars. ▶▶

WOODWORKERS AND TINSMITHS

Manual tinsmithing modifications to the windscreen frame of the popular FELICIA convertible (1959)

Work done by the first tinsmiths was extremely physically demanding (1911)

… the rise of the tinsmiths Sheet metal is much better suited to painting than a wooden board. The more durable material also makes it possible to form more demanding lines with a small radius of curvature.

An L&K tinsmith would pick up a sheet of metal from the warehouse in the morning and manually hammer an arch for a car that was being completed. Let’s say he turned his handiwork in before the end of the shift – and the next morning, he started to form a bonnet or a door from a new sheet. The result? Each piece was unique. Replacing the same part from another car would not be possible without slight adjustments in shape and dimensions. The work was slow, and manual hammering with thousands of blows made it impossible to create a perfectly smooth surface.

It was only the presses that opened doors to standardised dimensions and the much faster manufacturing of smoother body elements.

1930

Standardisation of elements was made possible by connecting the bodywork presses

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Manufacturing of bodywork for the Model 120 already bore the hallmarks of advanced automation (1976)

In 1930, it began with arches for the ŠKODA 422 model, with pressed parts still delivered from Pilsen.

In the mid-1930s, massive presses were already working in Mladá Boleslav as well. Although only a few thousand ŠKODA cars were manufactured each year, there were several model lines in countless designs, and they were often facelifted, so the tinsmiths had quite a lot on their plates.

Only the mid-1960s may be considered the start of genuine mass production, after the self-supporting bodies for the ŠKODA 1000 MB had been introduced. The esteemed expert bringing it to life was engineer and designer Zdeněk Kejval. The development of bodywork design was led for many years by Josef Velebný, whose grandson Michal works as coordinator of the restoration workshop in the ŠKODA Museum and presents the historical episode of the My Machine series on YouTube.

Some of the most modern equipment in the industry is currently running in Mladá Boleslav: The servo-mechanical PXL I line was put into operation in 2013 and PXL II in April 2017, which started with a daily capacity of 22,000 pressings for various models. It is technologically ready to produce large aluminium parts (pressing force of 8,100 tonnes) as well. The commissioning of PXL II, weighing 3,000 tonnes, has brought 140 new jobs.

PERSONAL WITNESS

Woodworkers helped the carmaker grow He has been working for ŠKODA AUTO for 40 years – most of that time as a woodworker. “My career is tied to the Mladá Boleslav plant”, says Jaroslav Lochman. In his new job as a mechatronics technician, he is housed where the master woodworkers used to be.

How did you get to work at ŠKODA AUTO? My dad and grandpa were carpenters. I started climbing roofs with them when I was 13, and I later went to become an apprentice. But instead of carpentry, I followed woodwork. I went to school in Kladno, but I gained my practical experience in the wood shop at ŠKODA. And because they were still hiring new people, I stayed here after I finished the vocational school. It was hard work.

Everything had to be pulled manually. But it’s a beautiful craft, nonetheless.

What did a woodworker’s job in the car company involve?

When I joined the company on 1 July 1980, timbering was still required for certain uses, which I never got to do. But we really used to make everything – from wooden jigs and pallets to mats, we’d build any furniture, equipment for food corners throughout the factory, kitchenettes, we used to fit out with furniture kindergartens, children’s camps and mountain cabins for our employees’ holidays.

And has your work changed considerably over the years?

It has, and so has all woodworking. For example, we used to make veneered boards, and we worked with solid wood a lot. We had 12 dryers. There was a large warehouse for our material where the parking house is located now. Then it gradually started to be ordered from our suppliers, and we switched to laminated boards. We started using much more modern equipment for material processing, which also significantly decreased the number of injuries.

What do you do nowadays?

The wood shop closed five years ago, so I moved to machine maintenance and overhauls. We did a lot of other crafts at our wood shop, so it was quite a logical shift for me.

PAINTERS

COLOURFUL HISTORY Surface treatment used to be the bottleneck of production. The first car bodies, which were brush-painted with boiled linseed oil, took several weeks to dry. Back in the day, ŠKODA painters used ground-breaking nitro varnishes and spray guns, but now they work with ultramodern robotic technology. Whereas they used to mix colours by guesswork in earlier days, the current process is now fully automated, including the checking of mixture

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1920

Nitro varnish led to a technological revolution in the industry

homogeneity and colour stability.

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n the days of the first L&K motorcycles at the end of the 19th century, varnishes based on linseed oil or more attractive liquefied natural amber resins were used. Painters would rub pigments into binding agents on stone slabs.

To completely paint a car could take between four and eight weeks, as it was necessary to coat several layers of sealant and intermediate paint with a long drying time. It was the woodoil based materials that made it possible to paint and quickly dry in a “mere” 10 days. No wonder there was such low labour productivity and high car prices in the early days of the automobile.

Do you know that ... most of the L&K models were black, green, maroon, beige or red?

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

This work completely changed in the 1920s.

Painters began to use nitro varnishes that were suitable for rapid mass production.

Nitrocellulose used during the war was applied as a binder. Synthetic thinners, pigments and softeners began to be produced on a large scale.

Thorough degreasing of the undercoat also led to higher quality. Matte nitro varnishes dried for about 15 hours and even faster at higher temperatures. An intense deep shine could be achieved by using polishing paste and linen cloth. Painters no longer did polishing by hand but had electrical and pneumatic tools. Nitro varnish, capable of dissolving previously applied layers, could no longer be applied with brushes, so spray guns took over the workshops.

In late 1920s, a new binder arrived from America to Europe – alkyd resin with fatty acids called Glyptal – and form the basis of highquality nitro-combination varnishes that were easy to apply and durable and had a deep gloss.

1 With the advent of drawn sheet metal facilitating the previously demanding sealing, hard alkyd resins found their use after World War II, and the time to paint a car decreased to about four hours.

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2 In the 1960s, polyester-based paints followed, and the top layers dried at a lower temperature.

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3 The following decade brought the body filler that protected against corrosion. The tanks that the bodies were dipped in saved the painters a lot of work, and the protective layer even got into hidden corners of the increasingly complex weldments.

4 In the 1990s, material losses during painting were still extraordinary and made this the most expensive stage in car production. An enormous breakthrough came with electrostatic spin coating, which applied up to 90 percent of the material in its proper place.

5 The painters’ working conditions have changed radically with the use of modern respirators and other protective equipment, as well as the introduction of water-soluble paints and because the most complicated tasks have been taken over by automated lines. Last year, one of the most modern paint shops started operating at the main plant of ŠKODA AUTO in Mladá Boleslav.

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6 Even such complex technology cannot do without skilled workers. Machines have taken over the physically strenuous work, and in each stage of car painting, deft human hands will ensure that the applied material doesn’t get to places it shouldn’t be. Eagle-eyed workers who look for the slightest flaws in the paint are also invaluable and repair them at the same time – fine grinding or polishing is usually enough. These workers are assisted by the newly introduced HITECH technology by EINES, which is based 66 robots carry out on camera scans of the body surface.

2019

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the most difficult tasks in the new paint shop

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FITTERS ON THE PRODUCTION LINE

FROM MANUAL DRIVE TO 30 ROBOTS

vehicles

During the first 25 years of L&K, motorcycles and cars were manufactured in a workshop where each employee had a number of tasks. The launch of production lines 90 years ago led to major changes in their work.

7vehicles 0,3 vehicles 1910

1 vehicle 1936

1970

2019

Manufactured vehicles per year per employee

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n 1910, about 1,000 workers made a total of fewer than 300 cars – not in an hour, a day, a week or a month but in an entire year! In the second half of the 1930s, one employee accounted for about one complete car per year.

In 1970, seven ŠKODA 100 models were sent out into the world for each worker. And last year, the annual share was a whopping 30 cars!

Václav Laurin and Václav Klement began in 1895 with two workers and one apprentice in a modest workshop, equipped only with simple, human-powered devices. After only a few months, a steam engine took over a substantial part of the hard work, and later the company also ran its own hydroelectric

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power plants. Electric motors usually powered several machines at once using long leather belts (line shafts) spun by a shaft under the workshop’s ceiling. Woe to anyone who got too close to the whizzing belt! Hard physical work was the name of the game, with employees pushing unfinished cars on their own from one workplace to another. At that time, almost everything was produced in the plant in Mladá Boleslav, including electrical installations, carburettors, wheels and seats – tyres were an exception. However, it was a very inefficient process, so the number of components from external suppliers started to increase. Some jobs disappeared from the factory, but several new job opportunities were created.

The sharing of standardised components helped the company to reach success. The new factory found use for precise and fast American machine tools.

The attention of experts was primarily attracted by the process of cylinder head machining, intentionally divided into 47 operations. The assembly of the chassis was also unusual: The frame lay “on its back” on the belt (because of easier assembly of leaf springs) and was turned only after the lower part had been assembled.

The line, however, did not do without a narrow specialisation of employees. For example, some were responsible only for tightening a few specific screws – many times a day, with more and more skill.

The “coupling” of a chassis with backbone frame and a body with timbering (1936)

A bet on specialisation In September 1925, Laurin & Klement merged with Škoda, the mechanical engineering and arms holding manufacturer from Pilsen. This allowed huge funds to be invested in Mladá Boleslav and made it possible to build a modern part of the factory. Little did anyone know that shortly after the launch in 1929, a global economic crisis would strike, but unlike many other famous brands, the company would avoid bankruptcy thanks to prudent preparation. In fact, the winged arrow came out of the crisis strengthened and was hiring new employees!

The plant’s production capacity with a total area of 215,700 m2 and 4,278 employees in 1929 was initially 20 cars per eight-hour shift. After the introduction of the three-shift operation, this figure increased to 85 cars a day. ▶▶

1929

The launch of the line resulted in a 425% increase in the number of cars produced per day

Assembly of the ŠKODA 100, successor to the “MB model” (1970)

The modern line required a narrow specialisation of its assembly workers (1929)

FITTERS ON THE PRODUCTION LINE

Hard work for the machines!

Precise and reliable robots have been working in the company since the 1980s. Today, the 1,410-metre-long production line in Hall M13 is one of the most modern ones. It was designed for the OCTAVIA and KAROQ models, and over 1,300 cars can be produced every day.

Conveyor belt production brought the risk of monotonous work and, thus, unilateral strain.

Today, these negative effects on employees can be effectively eliminated. Flexibility and a number of ergonomic solutions help. When it comes to ergonomics, the carmaker emphasises prevention. For more demanding activities, it has introduced handling devices into the production process, which makes it easier to work with larger parts, such as wheels or dashboards.

Employees are also trained in multiple activities and take turns in the team on a regular basis to avoid stereotyping.

Assembly digitisation (dProduction) in the Kvasiny plant provides employees with a perfect overview of the demanding process (2019)

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Assembly of the drive chain in the self-supporting body of the facelifted FELICIA model (1998)

The future belongs to cooperating robots, which help ŠKODA AUTO employees with tasks that are physically demanding or require extremely high accuracy. The transport robot in the Vrchlabí plant is a quick learner: It is enough for a worker to travel a specified route with it only once for it to find the shortest and safest route by itself.

In Kvasiny, they were the first to introduce the digitisation of the entire assembly process in the form of dProduction – text instructions, as well as 3D images and video guides – so that employees have a perfect overview, thanks to touch screens, of everything they need to know. The result is saved time and reduced risks of stress, errors and injuries for the employees at work. The combination of the irreplaceable skilled manpower and the modern technology is, in short, still the most efficient way of producing cars.

THE PRESENT

Jan Solnička PF2-M/1 – VEHICLE PRODUCTION MB II – FABIA “My career at ŠKODA AUTO shows how possibilities in the development and career growth of employees have expanded. I started to assemble power units and later was retrained to become a car mechanic. Such a change wasn’t usual during my grandfather’s time.

Thanks to additional training, I could work on the roll-in rollers, and today I work in vehicle engineering fitting on the remanufacturing line.

I enjoy the variety in my work. However, my responsibility is great. I can’t miss any defects. My activity is not followed by any regular check that would reveal imperfections. Fortunately, various detailed instructions and procedures help me with what I do. For example, when fitting grouped lamps, they help me to understand in what order I should tighten each screw during the disassembly and the subsequent reassembly. Unlike in years past, assembly work is also facilitated by various handling devices or controlled torque drivers.”

“I started in the same position as my grandfather did”, says the fitter, who has been working for the carmaker for five years.

He was also inspired by his other relatives working at ŠKODA, especially his father and also his uncle.

TOOLMAKERS

EQUIPMENT FOR THE TEAM Car production cannot do without specialised tools, instruments and jigs that range from apparent trifles to multitonne moulds. Toolmakers help to transform designers’ ideas into series production.

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he Tool Shop in Mladá Boleslav has been running for 120 years and opened during the era of L&K bicycles and motorcycles. At that time, skilled toolmakers were making models for the manual hammering of arches, as well as drill bits and files. The L&K jacks-of-all-trades’ masterpieces included their own lathes, grinders and milling machines.

The introduction of conveyor belt production in 1929 led to enormous progress and new tasks for the Tool Shop; models and dies for American body presses soon appeared. The fleet of modern automatons grew in numbers, too.

Do you know that … as early as 1964, ŠKODA AUTO was the first European carmaker to introduce the die casting of aluminium engine blocks into steel moulds for its ŠKODA 1000 MB serial model?

The licence was later bought by the French carmaker Renault.

The history of the Tool Shop is addressed in the July issue of ŠKODA Mobil. Have you visited its nifty website at skoda-naradovna.cz?

Toolmakers were also tested in 1952 when the process switched to all-metal bodies. They initially struggled with the unsatisfactory quality of the sheets and dies: The underlying models made of wood would deform, while those made of plaster would swell up. In 1965, they were replaced with expanded polystyrene, which burned out in a controlled manner when in contact with the hot alloy. It was a tough nut to crack, but they did it!

The milestones of the Tool Shop in Mladá Boleslav also include the development and production of the first automatic machining line in Czechoslovakia, used for cylinder heads.

With the launch of the first modern generation of the ŠKODA OCTAVIA (1996), the Tool Shop expanded its scope to include welding jigs and lines. In the Czech plants of ŠKODA AUTO, tools are now manufactured on an area of over 40,000 m2. Pressing, welding and metallurgical tools are designed and produced there, even for other Group brands.

The most famous filemaker

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The famous racer Václav Vondřich, nicknamed the Travelling Blacksmith, was recruited from among the ranks of skilled toolmakers. He started as a filemaker (file manufacturing was a tradition in his family), and in 1905 he became the unofficial world champion in Dourdan near Paris on his two-cylinder L&K motorcycle. Later he was in charge of the main Prague store of the L&K and then the ŠKODA brands.

125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

PERSONAL WITNESS

A man of many professions Trained plumber Zdeněk Vrchlavský started his career in the car factory in 1952. From a metalwork position, he gradually worked his way up to become chief dispatcher and have a complete overview of the carmaker’s operations.

What did your beginnings in the company look like?

As part of my tinsmith apprenticeship, I was assigned to the Autorenova Slaný company. However, after graduating from the company’s vocational school, I joined ŠKODA’s press shop, where I worked with small presses – drilling and so on. At work, I watched the real tinsmiths, who were still making fenders on jacks, pouncing them on a scale model. In 1955, I was drafted for basic military service.

Did you return to the car factory afterwards?

Yes, I started working at the welding shop and got involved in the production of the Spartak model. We worked shifts, but it was different than today. The equipment was entirely different; if anything, we only had pliers, and that was it.

How did you become a dispatcher?

In 1961, they asked us whether we wanted to go to an evening vocational school. So I went to work in the morning and to school in the afternoon. When I finished it after three years, they came to ask me whether I wanted to be a welding shop dispatcher.

What was the work about?

The dispatcher actually helped to ensure the activities were carried out. We were mainly sending servicemen to various places in case of failures. Later, I switched to the corporate dispatching service. As the main dispatchers, we worked in 24-hour shifts there. At the same time, we also received regular hourly reports on the current numbers from individual sites and passed these figures on to the management. As a result, I knew a lot of people from the entire factory. My grandson often tells me that he frequently meets people at work who remember me. I’m an old chap and a grandfather, so this always pleases me.

Did you meet other relatives at the car company?

Yes, my wife and son-in-law, and my mother-in-law sewed seats. Today, my grandson works in Assembly Logistics, which is a bit like my work.

FOREMEN AND APPRENTICES

EXPERTS AT THE BLACKBOARD

Apprentices during extracurricular activities at the boarding school (around 1950)

Training the next generation is a pillar of the company’s long-term development.

For more than 90 years, the Secondary Engineering Vocational School in Mladá Boleslav has been preparing over 23,000 graduates for future work.

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n the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, crafts were grouped into guilds that determined their own conditions and requirements imposed on their members. The foremen in the individual facilities at the L&K car plant were in charge of the professional training and education of the young generation. This also applied during the First Republic. As a result, the name of the foreman, who tutored the apprentice for three years and was responsible for him or her, appeared on the apprenticeship certificate. The theoretical part of vocational education was provided by the local

industrial school, founded in 1867 as one of the first vocational schools on the Czech territory. At present, the Mladá Boleslav “industrial school” is housed in the first-rate building by architect Josef Kroha, which was used by the so-called housekeeper’s school between 1927 and 1952.

The company’s vocational school, which has been part of the ŠKODA Academy since 2013, has a tradition that dates back to 1927, when the first 58 pupils started studying in three classes.

With love and full understanding

Vocational school pupil during practical training (1945)

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The ŠKODA Museum Archive retains the “certificates” issued to employees who left their jobs. A document dated as far back as 31 March 1931 evaluates the 60-year-old Josef Lazák, a native of the Kotelsko region: “He worked at our company as a workshop manager in mechanical workshops in the Drills, Small Revolvers and Automatic Machines department. Recently, Mr. Lazák was tasked with supervising the education of all our apprentices, a task he has undertaken with extraordinary love and full understanding. He carried out all the tasks entrusted to him to our full satisfaction, so we can heartily recommend him.”

125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

Number of pupils at the company vocational school

1937

342 apprentices

1965

815 apprentices

2020

957 apprentices

THE PRESENT

Foremen take the lead During the socialist era, pupils were divided into work groups, each of which was led by the same vocational training foremen throughout their attendance. Foremen with the appropriate qualifications were mostly recruited from the carmaker’s parent plant on the basis of a recommendation by the HR department. Their level of knowledge was increased by specialist training, organised by the Ministry of Labour and later by the Ministry of Education. They acquired their teaching skills by completing the so-called pedagogical minimum training.

Pupils learned theory in specialised classrooms equipped with visual aids and getting practice in workshops. Under the foremen’s supervision, they were routinely producing tools for production plants and service stations, as well as products for external customers (e.g. 30 lawnmowers made in 1967). Specialist training of senior students also took place directly at the manufacturing sites.

When it became part of the VW Group, the carmaker introduced new model lines and increased the number of manufactured cars, which heightened the need for qualified workers.

Hundreds of millions of crowns were invested in modernising the school, and it was also reorganised. Today, more than 100 teachers take care of educating the ŠKODA youth – half of them teach theory courses, while the others do professional training.

Vocational school pupils work on the Azubi Car apprentice model (2020)

Karel Hrdina SEB – SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOL “I’ve been interested in technical innovations since my youth, and I like learning new things.

Thanks to this, I can pass on the experience that I’ve acquired. Over close to 50 years, all the production processes and techniques that we use have changed dramatically. We work with our students, who use top tools and apply the latest procedures.

Whereas in the past it was mainly a matter of craftsmanship, today, for example, interacting with virtual tools and robots is becoming increasingly important.

Although it probably won’t be needed for routine work in the relatively near future, I believe that human craftsmanship, ingenuity and dexterous hands will never replace machines. I’m trying to pass this philosophy on to my students as well.

I enjoy working with young people.

I feel that I will age more slowly thanks to them.”

ŠKODA AUTO has been gathering experience and passing it on since the 1970s. “My dad gave me the passion for cars and everything that smells like gasoline”, the experienced technician said.

DESIGN ENGINEERS

1898

Laurin comes up with an innovative solution by placing the engine in the frame of a motorcycle

DRIVERS OF DEVELOPMENT Today, ŠKODA AUTO is the only carmaker in the Czech Republic not just manufacturing passenger cars but also developing them.

The success of the L&K and ŠKODA brands stems from a long line of proprietary design solutions, some of which have been license purchased – even by major foreign companies: At the beginning of the 20th century, SLAVIA motorcycles were manufactured in Germany under the Germania brand; 60 years later, the unique Czech aluminium die-casting technology was sold to competitor Renault.

Václav Laurin behind the wheel on a family trip connected with testing a new model (around 1909)

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Chief designer and driver Slevogt, without a driver’s license

Laurin, the modest pioneer One of the revolutionary ideas of Václav Laurin, co-founder of the Mladá Boleslav factory, was the optimal motorcycle layout with the drive unit in the lower part of the frame, not above the driven front wheel. Laurin got it at the turn of 1898 and 1899 and was ahead of his time.

This extremely modest introvert was personally behind the design development of the brand at least for the first five to 10 years. He was a trained mechanic and had an extraordinarily creative imagination, but with increasing construction complexity, he withdrew into the background. Trained technicians, calculators and technologists took over. As technical manager, the experienced Laurin corrected their proposals, and his practical comments and observations from the test drives were invaluable. He also tested new cars on weekend rides with his patient family. He was a dedicated worker – while working on a “driven twowheeler” (motorcycle), he even knocked out his front teeth in a fall.

1910

The design team was international from the very beginning. In addition to Czechs, it mainly consisted of Germans, like technician Karl Slevogt. He worked in Mladá Boleslav in 1906 and 1907, but even during this short time, he boosted the development from in-line two-cylinder, via a very modern four-cylinder, to an eight-cylinder FF engine. The peak of the Slevogt era included the four-cylinder E 4.6 l/35 k (26 kW) with the so-called T-head, that is, with camshafts on both sides of the cylinder block. The Slevogt era ended with a series of tumultuous events damaging L&K’s reputation. Among other things, it turned out that he had concealed a number of traffic offences and falsely claimed to have a driver’s license.

Back then, it was a matter of course that the car designer also raced the vehicle at the top level to discover its structural weaknesses.

Few people know that the company supported Slevogt’s very capable successor, the amiable Otto Hieronimus, with his passion for aviation. In 1910, he became the first pilot on our territory!

In 1925, the traditional Laurin & Klement brand merged with the West Bohemian engineering and armament giant Škoda, and design teams worked simultaneously in Mladá Boleslav, Prague and Pilsen. ▶▶

Chief designer Hieronimus becomes the first pilot on the Czech territory

Naughty but ingenious design child Karl Slevogt, first to the left of the steering wheel (1907)

DESIGN ENGINEERS

30 years of being the father of ŠKODA passenger cars In 1928, Vladimír Matouš (1896–1963) became the chief designer of ŠKODA passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.

He was a talented graduate of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague and originally participated in the licensed Pilsen production of ŠKODA Hispano-Suiza luxury cars. Matouš emphasised the quality, reliability and standardisation of components. One of his first successes was the ŠKODA 430-645-860 series, introduced during the autumn of 1929. Thirty years later, before retiring, he managed to prepare further production legends: the OCTAVIA and FELICIA models.

During World War II, the factory had to make deliveries to the German army. Consequently, the giant truck for the Eastern Front, the ŠKODA RSO, was built directly in Mladá Boleslav. However, bold sabotage succeeded in “sourcing out” or devaluing a vast amount of strategic raw materials.

Vladimír Matouš

Active retiree Velebný visits the kangaroos Josef Velebný was one of the most interesting people in ŠKODA’s post-war design history. He had been working at the Mladá Boleslav car factory since the second half of the 1920s, but his most important projects are connected with the post-war era. As the head of ŠKODA car body construction, he was responsible for the company reaching major technological milestones – the transition from mixed construction (i.e. with sheet metal covered wood) to an all-metal body on a separate chassis (ŠKODA 1200, 1952) and then to a selfsupporting all-metal body (ŠKODA 1000 MB, 1964). After retiring, Velebný participated in developing a series of special products for foreign customers. He was designing cars right on site and also helping to launch the production of practical pick-ups and SUV predecessors – like those for New Zealand (TREKKA), Pakistan (SKOPAK) and Turkey (ŠKODA 1202 KAMYONETLERI). In 1977, his last foreign mission involved the construction of welding jigs and putting together disassembled ŠKODA 120 L cars in Costa Rica.

One of ŠKODA’s main triumphs after 1989 was that it was virtually the only company from the former Eastern bloc to have a modern car it had designed itself, the FAVORIT. The team led by Petr Hrdlička had designed it in the 1980s.

Josef Velebný

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Design office in 1950

125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

Hrdlička, the father of the legend Petr Hrdlička is both the son of the pre-war car manufacturing director Karel Hrdlička and the father of the current head of chassis and unit development, Martin Hrdlička. In August 1948, he joined the Tool Shop of the Mladá Boleslav– based AZNP as apprentice number 9,809 (mechanical locksmith and car mechanic). Later he became acclaimed as an expert in hypoid gears and from 1963 to 1964, he worked in Mladá Boleslav as the chief engineer of the gear shop. He then worked in Switzerland and at the Institute for Motor Vehicle Research in Prague.

In March 1983, Petr Hrdlička became the head of AZNP’s Research and Development Plant and was tasked with managing the project of a newgeneration front-wheel drive car, which would later become the ŠKODA FAVORIT.

Mountain test of the masked model FAVORIT (around 1986)

He also cooperated with ŠKODA AUTO after retiring, for example, as an external consultant on the ŠKODA FELICIA PICKUP light commercial vehicle project, including its FUN leisure derivative (1995–1997).

In the spring of 1991, at the time of joining the VW Group, the Mladá Boleslav development department had 600 employees. By 1999, it had grown to 1,170. In April of the same year, they moved into a new construction centre, a glazed building on the banks of the River Jizera. It is traditionally nicknamed Česana (from the Czech word “česat”, meaning “to comb”) after the original use of the local area in the 19th century, when it served as a spinning mill for worsted yarn. ▶▶

Petr Hrdlička with car body technologist Bohumil Drbohlav (right)

1985

Hrdlička’s team starts working on a front-wheel-drive car

DESIGN ENGINEERS

Profesor Bockelmann Professor Wilfried Bockelmann has been in contact with the Czech carmaker since 1985, when he helped to modify the Pierburg carburettor for the upcoming FAVORIT model.

From 1995 to 2002, this German technician headed ŠKODA AUTO Technical Development and managed, for example, work on the first generations of the FABIA and SUPERB models, as well as three-cylinder engines. He was responsible for preserving and further developing the plant in Kvasiny and also brought the ŠKODA brand back to world rallies. He worked in Mladá Boleslav for 79 months, and the huge progress the brand made is also demonstrated by the transformation of his company vehicles: Initially, it was the 1.3 l-engine FELICIA; by the end of his time at the company, he was already driving the SUPERB V6, and all the cars in between were in his preferred colour: black. The demanding yet respected professor also liked classic cars and owned the legendary FELICIA model from the 1960s.

ŠKODA AUTO specialists have been developing, testing and simultaneously producing various important components and mechanical units for all Group brands for many years. All of it in various versions for individual world markets. For example, the exhaust system originally designed for the OCTAVIA RS 230 sports model was also used in the VW Golf Variant R. The Česana team is developing all indirect fuel injection (MPI) petrol engines for the entire VW Group and is currently responsible for the development of all Group manual transmissions and drum brakes, covering their design for the urban ŠKODA CITIGO to the large VW Amarok pick-up.

The advent of specialists When the company was in its infancy, Václav Laurin developed new models intuitively. With the growing complexity of design and production technology, scientific work methods soon prevailed, and university-educated designers took over this role. Technical Development in Mladá Boleslav currently has more than 2,300 highly qualified specialists.

Among other milestones, let’s not omit 2008, when the ŠKODA AUTO Technology and Development Centre was opened. In September 2014, an engine centre was put into operation as part of it and would later also host the gearbox centre.

Prototype of the first modern generation of the OCTAVIA in the development centre

Wilfried Bockelmann in an interview with Czech Television

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

THE PRESENT

Tomáš Rytíř

Pavel Pilvousek

EGV/5 – VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGIES

EGV/51 – VIRTUAL PROTOTYPE

“I started working at Technical Development after finishing my military service and stayed for 10 years in the Tool Shop. As a designer, I got my start at the drawing board. With the advent of CAD (computer-aided design) construction, I had the opportunity to be among the first at ŠKODA AUTO to work with programs like CATIA and Autoform.

Given the need to display data, virtual reality software tools were gradually added. When the Virtual Technology department was founded, I returned to Technical Development in 2004. Virtual reality tools help to speed up and improve the car’s development process.

We’re accompanying the model from the first conceptual phases through DDKM (digital data control models) until the end of series production.”

“I also had the opportunity to witness the rapid development of virtual techniques and their deployment in the course of my career.

I started my career at ŠKODA AUTO in the forged car body construction department, and after switching to EGV, I participated in introducing the collision parts analysis (DMU), digitised design models, and I’m currently creating virtual car models with my colleagues. The departments for which we are preparing visualisations can verify the design and functionality of their data in a virtual environment, and we don’t have to make so many physical prototypes. The scope of our activities is constantly expanding and requires professional specialisation. Each of us is an expert in a certain and partial area of expertise.”

He has been working for ŠKODA AUTO since 1991. Both his parents and his grandfather had careers at the carmaker.

“No wonder I’ve been drawn to this place since I was a child”, he says.

He joined ŠKODA AUTO in 1997 and has been working in the Prototype Production department since 2000. His parents also worked for the carmaker throughout their careers. “They proposed that I continue my studies after elementary school at AZNP, as the company was named back then”, he recalls.

Virtual assessment of the car’s interior using VR goggles

IT AND DATA TECHNICIANS

NUMBER TAMERS

The top IBM mainframe computer weighed

800 kg

Computer technology is now ubiquitous: from design and the organisation of production to distribution and even air conditioning control at the workplace. How did earlier generations manage without it?

A

lready at the time of First Republic, ŠKODA’s accounting offices were frequently using computing machines: All that was needed was to enter numbers mechanically and perform the numerical operation by turning a handle. For more than 110 years, various devices were used to register employees, from turnstiles to machines registering attendance hours with punched items.

In the post-war era, automatic machines were used in the so-called machine-calculation station, which processed data stored on punched labels or tapes. In the 1960s, they were used in AZNP, for example, to invoice manufactured spare parts.

However, there was a big change in 1969, when the carmaker bought a top mainframe computer.

Fortunately, the order had been signed a few days before the country’s occupation in August 1968, after which the Americans would no longer have approved it. However, hard currency Machine-numerical station staff diligently working with punched labels (1960s)

It was staffed by a trained team of computer technicians

was lacking, so several cars were exported from Mladá Boleslav to Austria. This was exchanged for vegetables, which were sold for schillings to pay for the American IBM 360/30 device. It was a computer from the same series that would help to land the Apollo 11 crew on the moon! The computer handled a previously unprecedented 30,000 computing operations per second (today, an ordinary smartphone would outclass it). At the time, however, it performed optimisation calculations in planning, costing and invoicing for the carmaker. The computer was taken care of by two trained technicians and had no electronic malfunctions in 20 years. Only consumptionrelated issues had to be addressed: The printer chains had to be exchanged, and the magnetic tape head needed to be cleaned.

The current capacity of our data centre’s ecological mainframe supercomputer is more than 106 billion times higher and can handle 3.2 quadrillion operations per second.

With its help, the carmaker’s employees are carrying out, among other things, extremely demanding aerodynamics calculations. Today, ŠKODA AUTO is one of the leading IT companies in the Czech Republic.

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MEMORY

IT pioneers In the 1950s, ŠKODA AUTO had a special department where data was processed on punched labels. Mostly women worked there, including Alena Košťálová, Eva Bělíková and Eva Stanislavová.

“It was a very special job, as we were the only ones in the whole republic to perform this work. We received a reward for each processed piece, like a punched label”, Eva Stanislavová, who started working here in September 1954, remembers the machine-calculation station.

According to her, it was necessary to work eagerly. Actually, each punched label was evaluated a little differently, depending on the complexity of the data entered.

Many different data were entered on the punch cards. “Our main task was to process data for calculating the salaries of employees, but on the whole, we performed a total of 126 different types of data acquisition and processing in the department”, according to Eva Bělíková, who joined the machine-calculation station in November 1954.

Processing wages demanded great responsibility was very time-consuming: “For us, this meant spending three 16-hour shifts in a row at work and processing all payslips into punched labels so that the pay-out for each employee could be calculated on time”, explains Alena Košťálová, the youngest of the three, adding that punched labels were also used to process, for example, invoices and other accounting documents, stocks, press occupancy and other data. “When a rally took place, some colleagues spent a few days at work continuously processing, for example, the results of a special rally speed competition on punching machines so that the racers would have them available as quickly as possible”, adds Košťálová.

The data were entered on the punched labels according to a specific key, and each type of activity had a particular structure. At first, the labels were manually created on Powerz machines, where the positions of the holes were entered and the label was then “manually” stamped out. The only thing left to do was to “programme” the Aritma automated puncher.

“Data processing required maximum attention as the inputs differed significantly. Each accountant had a slightly different system, and we had to find the proper numbers and put them where they belonged”, says Eva Bělíková.

This was the way the carmaker worked until the advent of personal computers. “We then switched to storing data on floppy disks, instead of punching machines, becoming data acquisition operators”, said Alena Košťálová about the development. “When PCs spread throughout the company, individual departments started processing the data themselves. Gradually, we scattered all over the company”, she added. “Out of about 30 of us, only seven remained in the department itself, and in 1994, our department was closed down for good,” Eva Bělíková describes the end of the specialised workplace.

Both Evas retired in 1994, but their younger colleague, Alena Košťálová, is still working at the car factory. She started in the archive, then worked as an external employee processing mail and since 2003 has been doing this activity internally, currently as a clerk for data boxes and external shipments.

The women’s team in the machine-calculation station.

Aritma punching machines in the foreground. (1978)

ADVERTISING EXPERTS

IDEAL CREATORS The best goods don’t need to be praised, but it doesn’t hurt to draw attention to their qualities. We certainly cannot deny that those who came before us strove for creativity. However, Internet tools have expanded our capabilities significantly.

V

áclav Klement, the company’s co-founder, got his first customers from the milieu of cycling associations and clubs in whose events he actively participated. He organised demonstration rides and led by example by personally riding to potential customers on a bicycle. In addition, the visionary Klement was a well-educated bookseller with a great business ingenuity. He deftly compiled texts for the first newspaper advertisements, posters and brochures and supported bicycle sales with a personally written brochure on cycling. Impressive accompanying black-and-white drawings were a must. Colour posters also proved to be very effective, although they certainly could not match the dimensions of today’s billboards. For example, an iconic poster from 1898 combined the motif of a girl’s beauty with the promise of the low weight of the SLAVIA bicycle: According to this beautiful picture, the girl and the bicycle together weighed only 63 kg.

The success of L&K motorcycles and cars at sports events soon became a frequent motif in the company’s advertising. The “officials” from the established ad department successfully faced the pressure coming from foreign-brand importers by emphasising their own export successes, for example, by reprinting a Japanese article in the exotic script. In 1912, the L&K company spent 90,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (around CZK 30 million today) on advertising. The workers had at their disposal an archive with hundreds of plates and wooden blocks – “stamps” to reproduce drawings and photographs, which they sent to the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines. Václav Klement supervised the promotions personally.

The advert for the AUTO ŠKODA 4R model was made by Vilém Rotter

Famous advertising for the SLAVIA bicycle

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

Eva and Frank Elstner The carmaker did not hide its famous customers. Goalkeeper František Plánička was another celebrity customer

From Bohemia to the ends of the earth The robustness and reliability of the Laurin and ŠKODA vehicles were also impressively demonstrated by long-distance promotional rides.

As early as the autumn of 1907, a fur-coated crew set off in an open FF-type car from Mladá Boleslav to Berlin and Paris. The inscription “8-cylindre-8 Laurin & Klement” stood out on the long front hood, and it was one of the first in-line eight-cylinder vehicles in the world!

One of the first radio announcers and later film director Jan Alfred Holman, who had a beautiful ŠKODA 645 business convertible, also worked in the ŠKODA brand’s promotional department. ŠKODA car journeys around the world rocketed in the 1930s. They proved that the POPULAR, one of the cheapest cars on the market, was capable of handling a trip to faraway India, or a difficult journey through the USA and Mexico or Argentina. The larger RAPID travelled around the world in 97 days, while another specimen was cruising through Africa.

Frank Elstner A passionate scout in his youth and later a teacher, but mainly a traveller, journalist and ŠKODA car promoter František Alexander Elstner, simply Frank to his friends, went on demanding long-distance rides in the second half of the 1930s with his wife, Eva, and the POPULAR model – and not only in Europe: They also went to the northern, central and southern parts of the Americas. In addition to a number of articles and radio reports,

Elstner’s travelogues, such as The European Returns (ŠKODA POPULAR in the USA and Mexico, 1936) and Tango Argentino (POPULAR 1100 OHV in Argentina, 1938), remind us of these journeys today.

The fragile blonde Eva not only proved to be a great navigator but also alternated with the popular Frank to take turns behind the wheel. After a travel break forced by World War II and the communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia, Elstner ended his travel career with a final expedition in 1959.

However, instead of going around the world, he was only allowed to drive to the Soviet Union, with the then-new ŠKODA OCTAVIA.

Tasteful advertising During the era of the First Republic, the prestige of the carmaker was also enhanced by images with famous owners: President T. G. Masaryk, writer Karel Čapek, footballer František Plánička and singer Karel Hašler.

Leading graphic artists Vilém Kreibich and Vilém Rotter had a hand in the graphic design of the materials. The former became a famous locomotive designer, and the latter founded and ran the most important graphic studio in Czechoslovakia. In 1928, Rotter gained attention with his first advertisement for the winged arrow company. He was an electrical engineering graduate and excelled with a modern artistic concept that retained a touch for industrial design. The share of colour gravure advertisements grew rapidly from the 1920s onwards, for example, the six-cylinder ŠKODA Hispano-Suiza prospectus was created on luxury paper, which made Kreibich’s drawings stand out perfectly. ▶▶

ADVERTISING EXPERTS

In the 1930s, the promotional and advertising department actively supported branded stores and repair shops. It regularly mapped the strengths and weaknesses of competitors for them, collected positive reactions from the press and customers, informed the stores and repair shops of the brand’s sports success and prepared brochures, catalogues and leaflets. The largest budgetary part was taken up by advertising in the daily press and magazines, followed by participation in exhibitions and car shows, sports team expenses etc. Thanks to promotional films, the brand began to gain the attention of moviegoers as well.

Neither the economy of scarcity during World War II nor the socialist era favoured advertising: The production, sale and operation of cars were bound by countless regulations, and the demand significantly exceeded the supply determined by the central plan. Because of the technological decline of local graphic design and printing technologies, many foreign representatives preferred commissioning promotional campaigns to experienced agencies abroad.

The austere if not almost boring advertising on the domestic scene changed after 1989.

The “IQ + = ŠKODA” campaign was a hit. The strength and safety of the FELICIA was also proved by the car being suspended only by its doors on crane straps, and this advert became unforgettable.

ŠKODA FELICIA posed on the front page of the Czech Playboy

Continued support for the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship since 1992 has brought the carmaker a record in the Guinness Book of Records

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

Its successor, the FABIA, took the form of a huge cake on TV (2007). Five years later, the same motif was made more rough, when the sporty FABIA RS was shown to be manufactured out of bones and snake venom.

If you are looking for trustworthy information about cars and attractive stories from the brand’s life on the Internet, you certainly know the ŠKODA Storyboard content platform or follow the carmaker’s profiles on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Cycling fans all around the world regularly visit the online magazine We Love Cycling. Today, social networks are “lit”, and instead of a black-and-white printed leaflet, viral videos like those on YouTube will draw attention. However, the basic promotion and advertising principles have not changed. Cars and comprehensive mobility services provided by ŠKODA are attractive thanks to the favourable price/performance ratio, modern technologies and attractive design as convincing as the first SLAVIA bicycles 125 years ago.

The brand is also visible in the world thanks to the partnership with the Tour de France

THE PRESENT

The generous support of top sports, cultural and charitable events helps in spreading the good name of the ŠKODA brand all around the world. ŠKODA AUTO has also long supported the Czech Philharmonic, the National Theatre, the National Gallery in Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl Opera Festival and the largest Czech film festival for children and young people, the Zlín Film Festival.

Roman Hloušek VMP-1 – STRATEGIC PRODUCT PLANNING – MARKET RESEARCH “Advertising has a great impact on shaping the customers’ relationship with the brand, its positive image and the general success of its products. Modern times have greatly expanded the range of channels through which loyal and potential customers can be reached – for example, online video platforms, social networks and promotion in the form of influencers. Personally, I am part of a specifically focused market research team that provides targeted support to colleagues in order to make the brand presentation successful in the long run. Among other things, we are responsible for using statistical data or quantitative and qualitative methods to determine the initial target group of customers of ŠKODA models and to recommend possible advertising targeting. As ŠKODA AUTO has become a global brand, it is increasingly important to maintain its unified global identity while simultaneously allowing it to adapt to local conditions. A typical example is the differences between Europe, China and India.”

After interning in the foreign cooperation department at the Tool Shop, he settled in the product marketing department in 2011. Since 2016, he has been a market research team member. “My family history is firmly connected to the L&K brand as my great-grandfather joined it in 1925”, he says, describing a long tradition that also includes another great-grandfather and, of course, his parents and other relatives.

TRADITIONAL OCCUPATIONS

DRIVERS OF PAST DECADES When car production first began, there were no specialised external suppliers, with some exceptions confirming the rule. Each carmaker produced the maximum number of components itself. This also made sense due to the small number of vehicles, as well as the wide range of designs and innovations introduced in rapid succession. Some L&K and ŠKODA occupations have disappeared over the years. But with the advent of new technologies, several new fields, professions and positions have emerged.

Upholsterer At least until the 1930s, the people who owned a car were almost exclusively those whose incomes were far above average. Of course, the quality of the suspension had to meet their demands in comfort, especially given the poor condition of the roads at the time. The ŠKODA upholsterers were very handy: The coil springs in the seats and backrests were sewn into separate fabric tubes to prevent them from touching each other and tearing other materials, like seagrass pads or horsehair. In some cases, feathers were even used. Drivers’ seats, which were often exposed to adverse weather conditions, used to be made of leather, which was easier to maintain than noble fabrics. The latter were intended for closed passenger compartments.

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125 YEARS ŠKODA AUTO

Saddlery shortly after introduction of series production (1930)

Prior to air conditioning, drivers also appreciated it when their skin was not exposed to cold in the winter and their body was not sweaty and sticky in the summer. Leatherettes only started to gain ground in the 1960s, but they went out of fashion after the revolution, giving way to more pleasant textile materials with anti-slip treatment. In addition, the assortment was enriched with carefully processed leather.

Modern seats already have to meet the highest orthopaedic demands and safety standards and be able to withstand fire. They are manufactured by external suppliers.

THE PRESENT

Karel Žďánský BI/2 – PURCHASING INTERIOR

Gardener Owing to problems with supplying food to employees during both world wars, the company dealt with the more advantageous centralised purchasing of cattle and growing of vegetables on its land. In peacetime, it even had its own garden. Flowers were used to decorate offices and other facilities, to welcome delegations, to reward workers for major anniversaries etc. However, funeral wreaths were ordered “only from external suppliers“ during the time when the carmaker operated as AZNP.

“In my occupation, I have, among others, been in charge of purchasing steering wheels right from the beginning. They clearly demonstrate where the automotive industry has moved in more than two decades. The technical solution has fundamentally changed. At the beginning of my career, the steering wheels that were being produced were mainly airbag-free, but the first versions with an airbag soon appeared. Even the materials have changed. The original steering wheels were made of polyurethane, but the ones covered in leather are far more common today. I’ve experienced the advent of multi-function steering wheels and heated grip zones. Recently, components with sensors that detect the presence of a driver’s hand have become popular. Over the years, we have also replaced our steering wheel supplier, so instead of Horní Počernice, they are now coming to us from Romania, which brings logistical challenges with it.

I also buy airbags for ŠKODA, and their range has expanded significantly.

Gradually, further variants have been added: for the passenger seat, airbags for the head, knee, side front and rear. A novelty that we focus on is the central airbag, that is, between the driver and the front passenger.”

A Mladá Boleslav guy and a Škodovian for more than a quarter of a century. His father worked in the car factory, and his uncle, aunt, cousins and two daughters work or worked there as well, but he drew inspiration for working at ŠKODA AUTO from his colleagues at Mototechna. “After the revolution, they gradually moved to the car factory and lured me there, too”, he says.

TRADITIONAL OCCUPATIONS

Railwayman Looking back at the now 125 years of the brand’s existence, we find that the vast majority of the products – at least, from the Czech plants – have headed to customers on railway wagons. Therefore, the carmaker set up a siding at the beginning of the last century to operate steam shunting locomotives under its own direction and is still using rail transport today.

The plant’s siding is operated by the Railway Transport department (PLT/8), which ensures the shift with its own locomotives and is also responsible for the subsequent organisation of transport in the railway network.

The railway workers working for it have historically had to deal with a number of difficulties, such as the fallout from the Mladá Boleslav bombing in May 1945. Free wagons

Corporate railway workers in the wooden age of the carmaker – or rather coal age?

were a scarcity not only during wartime but also due to the dynamic increase in car production.

For example, the situation escalated in the spring of 1968: 6,803 out of the 7,333 vehicles produced in March were exported, but when loading for transport to Yugoslavia, Romania, Finland or Sweden, one had to wait up to 21 days for empty wagons to return and had to improvise with less suitable transporter types or rent a fleet in Italy.

At present, ecological rail transport is experiencing a renaissance and is helping to shrink ŠKODA AUTO’s carbon footprint.

The ŠKODA 1200 models (above) heading for the chassis frame assembly, RAPID 130s behind their future owners

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QUIZ

I BEG YOUR PARDON? OR ŠKODA SLANG

2. For the Škodovians, Globes are: a) technical luminaires b) protective ventilation roofs c) coolant containers 3. What is a wheely (kolovadlo)? a) a wrench for tightening wheel bolts b) the rotation of posts within the car assembly team c) a circular 4. Who or what is short of breath? a) a section in the paint shop where the car body is dried b) the sound of the fire brigade when leaving c) the pulmonary department of the company’s health centre

5. What does “tauffing” (taufování) mean? a) a vehicle inspection book confirmation for the performance of the assembly operation b) a chisel destructive test of the part in the welding shop c) an indication of the origin of the part in the technological BOM, whether it is purchased or manufactured 6. Who is an extremist, according to ŠKODA? a) a quality assurance worker performing demanding tests to verify the properties of cars b) a driver on the ŠKODA Motorsport factory team c) an external service provider 7. What is a “vasr”? a) a spray preservative for instrument panel treatment b) a water test for new vehicles c) an air conditioning compressor

8. What does the term octopus mean? a) an automatic connecting material dispenser b wiring harnesses in the instrument panel c) a robot in the welding shop performing several operations at once 9. What does vertex refer to? a) a pre-war ignition magneto by the Swiss brand Scintilla b) a verifier of the accuracy of information on the rating plate c) a man working with textiles in a predominantly female team 10. And what was the bronzer? a) a non-ferrous metal foundry b) a building for the production of Brons diesel engines, now part of the ŠKODA Museum c) a metal token that Laurin & Klement employees presented in their company canteen

Correct answers: 1a, 2c, 3c, 4b, 5c, 6c, 7b, 8a, 9a, 10b

1. The Kalashnikov is: a) a strut under the hood b) a hydraulic jack for heavy loads c) a telescopic rod to open the door

Varied occupational language is also part of everyday life at ŠKODA AUTO workplaces. These are often funny puns that the uninitiated would struggle to decipher. As a proper Škodovian, this will certainly be a piece of cake for you, but will you reach 100 percent?