Skoda restores the Octavia that set a Bonneville speed record in 2011

Update: We’ve been educated by Skoda that the document was not, as previously printed, unbeaten. We’ve revised the textual content to replicate this.

In 2011, Czech Republic-primarily based Škoda set a velocity document on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in a 600-horsepower Octavia vRS. To celebrate the event, Skoda restored the super sedan.

Initially painted in Corrida Purple, the Octavia begun lifestyle as a press car despatched to the firm’s British fleet. Its fate took an unforeseen change when it was selected as the Bonneville project’s setting up position. Škoda constructed it for the G/PS class, and the team to begin with aimed to get to 200 mph, about fifty a lot more than the velocity it was made to get to.

Finding there required earning sizeable modifications when nonetheless complying with the Southern California Timing Association’s regulations. Škoda redesigned the gas injection system to feed the engine a lot more gasoline, equipped a more substantial radiator, and included a transmission with longer gears sourced from the overall economy-centered Octavia GreenLine. The entire braking system was taken off and replaced by a parachute that the driver could work applying a lever.

One of the most important worries the team confronted was that the turbocharged, 2.-liter TSI four-cylinder that driven the Octavia vRS was new, so there have been very couple aftermarket tuners who could supply substantial-performance parts. Most of the make was for that reason dealt with in-property, though third-celebration providers helped Škoda make software program tweaks.

Once in Utah, where by the title Škoda seems like either a form of scone or a new soda taste, the Octavia conveniently broke the 200-mph barrier — and it kept going. It averaged 227.080 mph on Bonneville’s five-mile study course, a determine that produced it the speediest car driven by a 2.-liter engine equipped with forced induction. This document nonetheless stands in 2021.

Škoda celebrated the record’s 10-year anniversary by overhauling the vRS. Precisely what was needed hasn’t been uncovered, we have arrived at out to the brand for a lot more particulars, but it seems like the sedan was raced, washed, and mostly forgotten about for a decade. Engines you should not like to sit idle for yrs on stop, nonetheless Škoda’s mechanics received the 2.-liter operating very well ample for the Octavia to lap the Millbrook Proving Ground’s substantial-velocity bowl. It acquired a handful of decals that spotlight the document, though it shed the moon hubcaps it wore as it sped throughout the Salt Flats.

The firm’s marketing and advertising division could have used the document as a springboard from which to dive into the American current market, and rumors claiming Škoda would once again offer automobiles in the United States have been prevalent in the 2010s, but the offensive was delayed and eventually canceled. It selected to aim on other marketplaces, like India.

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