How Many Germans Does It Take to Make a Czech Car?(Skoda Automobilovy Koncern Ltd.)(Brief Article)

Every schoolkid knew the jokes. What do you call a Skoda convertible? A Dumpster. How do you double a Skoda's value? Fill the tank. For a generation of Western motorists, the Czech carmaker was a rare export rattlebug that ranked barely ahead of the clunky Russian Lada for charm or reliability. Says Peter Schmidt of Automotive Industry Data: "People in the West didn't buy Skodas because they liked them; they bought them because they couldn't afford anything else."

No one is laughing now. Since Volkswagen took control in 1991, Skoda has been transformed by German know-how (and $2 billion cash) into Europe's fastest- growing manufacturer. Turnover has jumped ninefold in the past decade, and 81 percent of last year's 450,000 new Skodas went to foreign buyers. Two new models, the family-size Octavia and the mini-scale Fabia, have picked up a clutch of awards for customer satisfaction. This week the classy new Superb sedan--aimed at big-spending business types--goes on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Comparing the Skoda story to a particularly melodramatic episode of "Dallas," the old TV soap opera, the tabloid Mirror called it "history's greatest comeback since Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower."

For Czechs, this is a happy return to the precommunist past. Founded in 1895, Skoda was known by the 1920s as "the Rolls-Royce of Central Europe," according to company literature. Later it would expand into armaments, and the allure of controlling Skoda was one reason Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. Even under communist control after the war, the company never quite lost its engineering reputation. Beside the stinky two-stroke Trabants and Wartburgs of East Germany, which were never sold in the West, Skoda reeked of class. Says Alfredo Filippone of the Association of European Motor Manufacturers: "Certainly they were behind everyone else, but at least they kept the flame alive."

Now Skoda hopes to rekindle Czech prestige, and sees the new Superb sedan as the car of Czech cabinet ministers. One problem. New models are little more than reshaped Volkswagens, rolling out of a German-designed factory at Mlada ...