At the recent 25th anniversary of Skoda’s merger with the Volkswagen Group, the Czechs decided to roll out three decades of Skoda vehicles for journalists to try. It was arguably a brave move, as the older models were clearly everyday working vehicles, with high mileages.

Skoda Favorit

Most popular among the assembled hacks were the three examples of the 1987 Favorit. I managed to get hold of the keys for the Favorit estate, more correctly known as the Forman.

Development of the Favorit was, in theory, overseen by the Czech communist government, so it must have been something of bitter pill for state-owned Skoda to have to go to Western engineering consultants for help.

Italian style house Bertone was heavily involved in the design, though Skoda developed its own modern monocoque body assembly. However, there was almost no effort put in on modern safety standards - as the car’s sub-900kg weight reveals.

Many years ago I ran into the VW engineer responsible for updating the Favorit. I asked him what he had done to the ‘platform’. He laughed out loud: "There was no platform. Just a structure".

Even so, this is remarkable well-packaged car. It’s wide inside and the room in the rear is very impressive. I wish I could say more about the space under the hatch, but the boot lock was missing. Slamming the doors - which are so light they seem ready to bounce off the lock striker plate - demonstrates the Favorit’s featherweight construction.

The 58bhp, 1.3-litre Skoda-developed engine is tappety but reasonably willing. The long gear lever has an ever longer throw, but once the car is rolling along the bare 68lb ft of torque is not an issue. Rather like an old Renault 4, the Favorit has a very comfortable gait and is - perhaps not surprisingly - very happy on the roads on which it was born.

The interior plastics might be a disaster, and the switchgear feels very cheap and crude, but you can absolutely see why this car was so popular across central and Eastern Europe.

Skoda Felicia

Driving the Felicia immediately afterwards - the VW-overseen model based on the Favorit - is a shock. Although this was a year 2000 model and had just 35,000 miles or so on the clock, it was a world away from the Favorit.

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