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1988 ŠKODA Favorit

Skoda Favorit 135 SL - 1988
Synner since: July 1987 @ 800 odo kilometers


The design of this car was worked on by Italian design firm BERTONE from 1983 to 1987 for production by ŠKODA in Czech Republic.
However, the vehicle design was influenced by SkoCar (Canadian ŠKODA Importer) and
M.I.K Automotive (BERTONE X1/9 Dealer in California).
It was the first ŠKODA vehicle designed from blank sheet concept to North American Safety Standards (US & Canada).

The vehicle was a radical departure for ŠKODA which for many years was manufacturing rear engined RWD cars.

This car with 1,289 ccm OHV 4-cylinder engine, used newly designed 5-speed FWD transaxle.

The original BERTONE made pre-production car was equipped with BOSCH EFI.

The Favorit was intended to be the "better" YUGO that Yugo America, Inc. refused to sell in the USA.

The car design utilized many of the YUGO GVX features.

This test car was equipped with following SynLube™ products:

This pre-production hand made prototype went through extensive test driving in Europe and Canada.

Over 200,000 Km (124,000 miles) were accumulated in less than 9 months.

The "used" vehicle was then given to automotive press writers to "test drive" and it got such raving reviews especially in Germany that in 1990 VW Group started investments into ŠKODA car factory and purchased 30% share from Czech Government for a paltry sum of US$8 billion.

After the initial investment in SKODA, VW Group influenced the decision to stop ŠKODA exports to Canada and cancelled the plans for the US distribution of the ŠKODA Favorit 135 LS. The rumors were that the 1990 model of VW Golf which sold for more than twice the price of ŠKODA Favorit could not measure up in comfort, performance and durability.

The first production vehicles, however were quite "different" from the BERTONE hand built prototypes and some major features such as BOSCH EFI and the power windows and remote door locking did not see factory installation until the last year of production in 1993.

Vehicle Data