Volkswagen-owned Škoda has taken advantage of old manufacturing techniques, cutting-edge technology and some original parts to rebuild one of two 1100 OHC Coupe racing cars it produced decades ago. . The restoration process took more than 5 years of work.
Although the Czech Republic-based company is now known for producing cheap, fun, and somewhat edgy cars, its huge legacy includes a number of models that have competed in the industry. regional, national and international races. One is the 1100 OHC Coupe, developed as an evolution of the 1100 OHC convertible and built around a lightweight frame made of thin-walled tubes. The engineers used some loose parts (like the door handles) to save time and money, but the aluminum chassis and body were created specifically for the two race cars.
The 1100 OHC Coupe both ran from 1960 to 1962, and Škoda notes that their careers were cut short by regulations that made them ineligible for competition. They were sold to private buyers in 1966 and subsequently modified and scuttled; One notable one caught fire. Luckily, these cars are already in the hands of people who know what they’re about, and many salvageable parts have been safely stashed away for decades. For example, the original engine of the first car was displayed at a vocational school in Škoda’s hometown, and the second car spent many years on display in the National Technical Museum in Prague before when donated to the Škoda museum about a quarter of a century ago.
Škoda also purchased an original frame that was cut into three parts, a front axle, plus other proportions and finishes from a private collector in 2014. It was from these scraps that the reconstruction project began. head. Uses a large amount of period material, including fix In the manual, men and women from the company’s museum and prototyping department renovated the frame and built parts like the radiator and fuel tank from scratch. The engine is said to be in surprisingly good condition as the car it came from hasn’t been driven much.
That’s where the project should have ended: The original goal was to recreate the frame, clean the powertrain, assemble everything, and display the frame in the Škoda museum. Then someone decided that the 1100 OHC Coupe was more deserving; It deserves to race again.
Of course, this sudden change of direction greatly expanded the scope of the project while posing new difficulties for it. Neither of the two 1100 OHC Coupes survived, meaning Škoda couldn’t find a spare car to start with – it couldn’t even find one to copy. Work with first: A 1-scale 2D scan of the original engineering drawings, engineers created a three-dimensional model that they spent hours refining by comparing it with photographs taken in the past 1960. Models are created to verify proportions, like when designing a production limited car. When everything is done, the body is built with aluminum panels that are hammered into shape and welded by hand.
Years into the making, the 1100 OHC Coupe is finally ready to line up on the grid again. Its front-mounted four-cylinder injects gasoline through a pair of carburetors to produce 92 hp at 7,700 hp. It turns the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission, a configuration that improves weight distribution and the gear ratio can be adjusted to suit a particular track. Škoda hasn’t revealed what the future holds for the coupe, but we expect to see the 1,223-pound coupe soon hit a top speed of 124 mph.
