A ‘luxury & class’ Octavia

THE name Laurin and Klement might sound like a Paris couturier, but it was a company founded in the Bohemian town of Mladá Boleslav, in the late 19th century, that made bicycles and motorbikes, and cars after 1905.

Named after its founders, Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement, the Czech company morphed into Skoda Auto, which would be taken over by Volkswagen in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain, in 1989, and be transformed into an ultra-modern, uber-successful car-maker.

Skoda Auto recently honoured these pioneers by naming exclusive versions of their Octavia and Superb models after them, and thus I have tested the Lauren and Klement version of the massively successful Octavia.