Which car brand would you least associate with motorcycles? If you answered ‘Skoda’ then think again, because Laurin & Clement, which eventually became Skoda, was building bikes back in 1899. Its Slavia B which, typically of the time, came with pedals and looked like a big pushbike with an engine bolted in, took part in the Paris-Berlin long distance race of 1901.

Skoda has decided to celebrate its motorcycling roots with a new Slavia B, but rather than some retro throwback, it’s a futuristic café racer with electric power, styled in what Skoda calls a ‘Modern Solid’ style – think rounded, chunky shapes with bold lines, and you’ve got it about right. Just to emphasise the lack of an engine, there’s a big hole in the solid-looking bodywork instead, while the only retro touch is a leather tool bag, similar to that of the original bike.

So, will we see it appear in a Skoda showroom any time soon? Absolutely not. The Slavia B is a PR exercise designed to promote Skoda’s long-established heritage.

Jim Freeman, chair at the BMF said, “It’s many years since Skoda joined Volkswagen Audi Group and became a ‘serious’ car brand again. It’s easy to forget that heritage going back to the dawn of the internal combustion engine, when Skoda was the Austro-Hungarian equivalent of Daimler Benz & Krupp. Skoda was the equivalent of Vickers in Britain as well, making everything from the Pz38t to rifles. Bikes and cars were a sideline. With the troubled VAG relationship with electric cars, who knows what might happen? Todays design projects can easily morph into production vehicles, it the manufacturers way of testing out ideas, with a clean sheet. ‘Designed by Skoda: made in China…?’ It’s already a ‘thing’, just not on two wheels, yet. ”

Written by Peter Henshaw

Top image courtesy of Skoda