Skoda

A broken bicycle. That is where the whole thing started. In 1895, a bookseller named Václav Klement bought a German bicycle in the town of Mladá Boleslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It broke. He wrote to the manufacturer asking for replacement parts. They wrote back. In German. They told him to write properly if he wanted service. Klement was furious. He found a mechanic named Václav Laurin and said, let's build our own bicycles. So they did. They called the company Laurin & Klement. The bicycles worked well. Then they built motorcycles. Then those motorcycles started winning races across Europe. By the early 1900s, people knew the name. In 1905, they built their first car. It was called the Laurin & Klement Voiturette A. Small. Simple. Affordable enough that normal p... More