The damage is reminiscent of an interesting story of a remarkable race car. Although it is somewhat forgotten today, it plays an important role in the Czech carmaker’s relationship with motorsport.
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The car is called the Octavia Touring Sport (TS). And it is important mainly because, thanks to him, the brand has once again gained a more significant foothold in the world of racing. The Mladá Boleslav company even talks about this car as the predecessor of today’s Octavia RS.
The Octavia TS was born in 1960, a time when, after the tough 50s, there was a cautious Czechoslovak opening to the world. Škoda decided to take advantage of this and decided to use sports success again to promote its models after a long time. This created a plan to send Škoda cars to famous foreign competitions.
In particular, the company considered long rally marathons to be ideal load tests of technology. In addition, participation in the rally was not as financially demanding as in later times, so many teams adjusted the competition cars themselves. It was enough to have a basis – and Skoda had a serial Octavia TS.
The Octavia TS gradually existed in two volume, and therefore also power variants. The original with a 1089 cm3 engine was fitted with two Jikov 32 SOPb gradient carburetors compared to the basic version of the model. The drive unit received a new intake manifold and the compression ratio increased to 8.4: 1 thanks to the deflectors on the pistons. The unit modified in this way generated 50 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 74.5 Nm of torque at 3500 rpm.
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In 1961, modernized variants of the Octavia and Felicia went into production, while a significant novelty was the introduction of the Super version, in which the original engine was re-drilled to a diameter of 72 mm and the resulting displacement increased to 1221 cm3.
However, while the Super version worked with a compression ratio of 7.5: 1 and the output reached 47 horsepower, introduced in January 1962, the Octavia TS 1200 had 5 horsepower more due to the above-mentioned higher compression, ie 55 at 5100 rpm. The torque was 86.2 Nm at 3500 rpm. Thanks to this, the Octavia TS drove up to 130 km / h. However, it was still only a serial “semi-finished product” for civilian customers. The tuners were able to extract power from the competition engine approaching the limit of 100 horses.
The engine was connected to a four-speed gearbox with shifting on the floor, the second to fourth gears were synchronized. The car, weighing 920 kg, stood on a spine frame with a central support tube, which carried the independent suspension of all wheels. Between 1960 and 1962, more than 2,270 copies of the Touring Sport were created.
Successes not only on Monte
Cars in the competition version, which raced in the category up to 1300 cm3, soon gained popularity with private foreign teams. The Finnish crew consisting of Esko Keinänen / Rainer Eklund, who already dominated their class at the Monte Carlo Rally in 1961, was the most successful.
A year later, 16 Octavia with crews from eight countries took part in the Monte Carlo Rally. And just like a year earlier, the class was clearly dominated by Finn Esko Keinänen, who won in front of four Alfa Romeo cars.
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The factory cars for the 1962 Monte Carlo Rally were only slightly modified – the compression remained at 8.4, the engine received an aluminum oil pan and the one with two homologated permanent transmissions was the one with a ratio of 4.78. The tires for this competition were selected Barum OS 11 5.60 × 15 cut and Michelin Valiart with studs. The triumph in its class on the Monte Octavia TS was repeated in 1963, this time thanks to the Norwegian garrison Gjölberg / Karlan.
In addition to the successes in probably the most famous rally in the world, Škoda also names other interesting results of the Octavia TS, including the biggest one at the Rally of a Thousand Lakes 1962, where Keinänen managed to beat all rivals except Toivonen with a Citroën DS 19 and finished for silver overall. he mastered his class. A year later, Keinänen was fourth in Finland.
Of course, the Czechoslovaks also competed with the competition octave. Josef Vidner and Bohuslav Staněk won the class up to 1300 cm³ at the Tour d’Europe in 1963 and finished in fifth place overall. Jaroslav and Václav Bobková, Miroslav Fousek, Vladimír Hubáček, Zdeněk Mráz, Leopold Lancman, Josef Vidner, Jiří Srnský and others also drove the Octavia TS after the competitions.
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