All Prejudices Fulfilled
You never forget your first love. That’s why we look back on their first car together with enthusiastic car owners. Wary of status and image, Marcel van Beek bought a Skoda 105 S during his student days, and the car fulfilled all prejudices.
In the 80s, people looked at a Skoda differently than they do now. Yet you went for it?
“At our house, it wasn’t a question of where you bought a car, but which one. Uncle Jan had a car garage, and the whole family was a customer there. This Skoda 105 S also came from there. Not exactly the car of my dreams, but I saw the practical side of it. After a five-minute test drive, I was convinced. For 4,500 guilders, it became mine. I was very proud of that car. At that time, a Skoda was still a real Eastern Bloc car, and it was looked down on a bit in the West.”
The Skoda wasn’t known as particularly reliable. Can you relate to that?
“It fulfilled all the prejudices about notorious unreliability, but I thoroughly enjoyed my Skoda. To bring the meters to life, I had to give the dashboard a good whack, and when I shifted back from third to second, the engine would stall. When I pressed the clutch, it would come back to life. Yes, the Skoda already had a start/stop system. Due to a leak, I had to regularly top up the coolant, and I still remember the manual choke next to the handbrake well. If you didn’t adjust it just right, you’d shoot forward.”
You covered quite a few kilometers, especially on the German autobahn. How did that go?
“Together with a fellow student, we did a months-long internship in Ratingen in West Germany. He bought the same Czech wonder in the same color, but with the stronger 1,200 cc engine. So we drove in convoy, between the trucks on the right lane, to our internship location. The road holding of our cars was poor, and to improve it, we put a sandbag on the front axle. Yes, the Skoda already had a frunk. By the way, it still didn’t drive too well after that.”
How did the environment react to those Eastern Bloc cars?
“Along the way, we attracted some attention, and sometimes people waved, but we felt the pitying looks. Like, ‘goodness, buy a decent car instead of such a glorified lawnmower’. The Skoda was associated with the ‘Ossies’, just like the Lada 2105. But the Skoda had something sympathetic about it. On the tailgate, I had a sticker that said ‘Skoda: easy does it’. I thought that was appropriate.”
After your internship, a vacation with the Skoda was on the agenda. But your father put a stop to that?
“I wanted to go to the South of France with the Skoda for a few weeks, but my father didn’t see that at all. He thought it was unsafe and had a bad feeling about it, but immediately offered a solution. I would take his Ford Scorpio, and he would temporarily use the Skoda for his work. In retrospect, I think that’s a very special gesture. He was an account manager, and a car is your business card. My father was apparently insensitive to terms like image or status, because for weeks he cheerfully drove up to customers in my old, unreliable Skoda. His Scorpio, by the way, had a big advantage: that car was so spacious that I didn’t have to bring a tent.”
Do you still miss the characterful Skoda with all its quirks a bit?
“Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed my first car. It really lived under your bum and I remember well the joy that everything worked once in a while. I like that I started at the bottom of the ladder with my automotive career and have slowly climbed a little further. I think that’s the best way.”
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