For the 120th anniversary of the motorsport division of Skoda Motorsport, the Czech company restored the 1100 OHC Coupe, which participated in races in the early 1960s. To do this, we had to buy back two original copies that were sold more than half a century ago and were broken in accidents. Experts from the Skoda Prototype Center used original drawings to bring a unique sports car back to life — however, there were only enough preserved parts for one copy.
1100 OHC Coupe was built in 1959. Both copies received a spatial frame welded from thin-walled pipes, a lightweight aluminum body, and a suspension with wishbones in front and a longitudinal lever in the rear.
They were driven by an inline naturally aspirated “four” from Skoda 440 Spartak (the predecessor of Octavia) with a volume of 1.1 liters, whose power for a sports car was more than doubled — from 40 to 92 horsepower. The maximum speed of the 555-kilogram two-door reached 200 kilometers per hour.
They participated in the 1100 OHC races for only two years — from 1960 to 1962, and then they were retired due to changes in the technical regulations. Four years later, the cars were sold to private buyers. As a result, both were almost completely destroyed in accidents, and the body of one of them was damaged by fire.
Skoda bought sports cars piece by piece, and by 2015 there were enough details to restore the chassis, which was exhibited in the brand’s museum. However, later the company decided to recreate the 1100 OHC Coupe entirely. Specialists used original drawings, according to which a three–dimensional model of the coupe was created, and then several real prototypes at different scales.
A number of components had to be created from scratch. Among them is the body, which was made of aluminum sheets with a thickness of 0.8 to one millimeter: as in 1959, they were formed and welded by hand. Some details were borrowed from the serial Skoda of that time — 1200, Popular, Spartak, and Octavia.