Back before its Volkswagen Group era, Skoda was an incredibly uncool Eastern-Bloc brand with questionable quality. Which also happened to make the odd incredibly cool car.
So while we’re all fizzing about the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking Golf GTI-in-drag, the Octavia RS, let’s take a moment to be wowed by the Skoda that became the known as the “Porsche of the East”, the 130 RS.
A successor to the 180/200 RS (the first use of the “Rally Sport” name by the brand), the 130 RS was a competition car loosely (very, very loosely) based on the 110 R coupe of the time.
It became a multi-discipline motorsport legend, winning everything from the 1977 Monte Carlo Rally to the 1981 European Touring Car Championship.
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With lots of aluminium and plastic, the 130 RS weighed in at just 720kg, which meant its 1.3-litre, 104kW engine could still shove it along at 220km/h. And shove it did, because the 130 RS (and the 110 road car for that matter) was rear-engined and rear-drive. Hence that “Porsche of the East” monicker.
In the best Porsche tradition, Skoda even created a completely wild version with really big wings.
The 1977 A5 (Category A, Group 5 rules) Type 738 was designed for circuit and hillclimb work, but also as a testbed to refine the company’s understanding of aerodynamics. As a handy sidebar, that mean seeing just how fast a 130 RS could go.
The 1.6-litre 142kW Type 738 could hit 249km/h (155mph) and looked outrageous doing it.
