Skoda Auto declared top Czech company

Czech car maker Skoda Auto in Mlada Boleslav has been announced as the winner of the Top 100 most admired Czech companies today, ahead of the Pilsner Urquell brewery and power utility CEZ. Skoda is one of the most successful Czech companies and by far the biggest Czech exporter. It accounts for 10 percent of the total Czech exports, selling 80 percent of its production on markets in more than 70 countries. Skoda's market share in the Czech Republic is about 50 percent.

Skoda Auto declared top Czech company

Skoda SUPERB

Next year, it will be a hundred years since car production started in Mlada Boleslav, some 40 km north-east of Prague. In 1991, Skoda became one of the brands in the German Volkswagen concern. Now, it has its own pavilion in Autostadt - a unique complex designed by Volkswagen near its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. On a 25-hectar area, visitors can learn about the history of automobility in the world as well as the latest technologies used in car production today. There are also pavilions presenting the individual Volkwagen brands to a million visitors every year (8 million since its opening in 2000). My colleague Lothar Martin from the German department visited Wolfsburg recently. He was shown around by Nicholas Batten, from the press department at Autostadt.

"In the museum, we have not only VW brands but all sorts of brands - American, Japanese etc. It is interesting to look at the different cars that really made car history."

Czech Skoda certainly is one of the brands that made car history. Its pavilion in Wolfsburg presents not only Skoda cars but also the Czech Republic as such.

"Skoda is a very important member of the family, so we have to have a Skoda pavilion which is a brilliant pavilion. It has a supercomputer which runs the most incredible cinema which allows visitors to take a look into Prague to see what the capital of the Czech republic looks like. I think it is a wonderful opportunity and also it represents both the Czech Republic and the Skoda company, and of course, you get to see the latest Skoda models at the same time in interacting with the history of the brand and the history of the Czech Republic."

Mr. Batten also explained the philosophy behind Autostadt, where all the brands are treated as equal.

"They are placed together as equal children within a family. As you can see from the layout of Autostadt, we have all of the different brands together positioned through the park, each brand represented completely differently and individually and that's the beauty of this. If you go to the Lamborghini pavilion, you see something very Italian. When you go to the Bentley pavilion, you see something very British. When you go to the Skoda pavilion, you see the Czech Republic live. That is the beauty here and it's a little bit the international flair that people always look for in Germany. Nine percent of our visitors are international - from Holland, the UK, America, as well as Eastern Europe. All the way through we represent all these different brands, including Skoda, which is very important. If you take a look at Autostadt layout, you will see that behind all these brands, placed strategically at the back is the Volkswagen brand, the mother brand. We place the VW brand behind the Skoda, Audi, Bentley Lamborghini pavilions because we want to express that VW - the mother - stands behind her children as an important symbolic gesture."