CarBrandLogos archive · Škoda · 1934

ŠkodaPopular

A backbone chassis and independent suspension, at a price ordinary Czechs could reach.

Photo: Norbert Schnitzler · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Škoda history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Škoda Popular, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Škoda entered the 1930s in trouble. The Depression had gutted demand for the large, expensive cars it had been building, and the firm — by then part of Škoda Works, operating through its ASAP subsidiary — needed something cheap enough to sell in a country of modest incomes. The answer, launched in 1934, was the Popular.

Škoda Popular OHV type 912 - front · User:Stahlkocher · CC BY-SA 3.0

Škoda Popular Special at the Sportauto Museum, Lány

Design and engineering

The engineering came from an idea Hans Ledwinka had established at Tatra and which Škoda adopted across its whole range: a central backbone tube carrying the driveline, with independent suspension at both ends and swing axles at the rear. On rough Czechoslovak roads this gave a small, light car far better ride and roadholding than the conventional beam-axle ladder-frame alternatives its rivals were selling. Engines were four-cylinders of roughly 900 to 1100cc, in side-valve and later overhead-valve form.

Škoda Popular Special at the Sportauto Museum, Lány · János Tamás · CC BY 2.0

In production

The car worked commercially, and Škoda backed it up in competition. A Popular Sport finished second in its class on the 1936 Monte Carlo Rally, and the company promptly named a version the Popular Monte Carlo, a low, elegant coupe that had little in common with the workaday saloon beyond its chassis principles.

Škoda Popular · nemor2 from Stuttgart, Germany · CC BY 2.0

Legacy

Production ran from 1934 to 1944 and briefly resumed in 1946 before the nationalised industry moved on to the Škoda 1101. The Popular is the model that pulled the company down into the mass market where it has stayed ever since, and the backbone-chassis principle survived in Škoda saloons well into the postwar era.

At a glance