Aotearoa New Zealand’s success within the Sixties in creating its personal mass-produced motorcar is prone to turning into a much bigger deal within the Czech Republic than in its dwelling nation.
Greater than 2500 examples of the utilitarian Trekka had been constructed from 1966 to 1972, and it’s now a celebrated a part of the historical past of Czech carmaker Škoda, which offered its mechanical components.
Škoda, one of many top-selling automotive makers in Europe, is even considering of marking the Trekka’s sixtieth anniversary this 12 months, involving a small fleet of Kiwi-built automobiles held by Czech automotive fanatics.
Trekka’s Czech revival is an automotive coals-to-Newcastle story, taking part in out in a world far completely different to the Chilly Struggle period, during which it linked two international locations on reverse sides not simply of the world but in addition the Iron Curtain.
One fanatic is Martin Starek, who grew to become maybe his nation’s first Trekka fan, again when Czechoslovakia (because it was then) was a communist nation tied to the Soviet Union.
As a 10-year-old in 1970, Starek learn of Škoda’s half within the Trekka, and wrote to Otahuhu-based Motor Holdings.
“I collected stickers and brochures about automobiles and someplace discovered the deal with of Trekka in New Zealand. They despatched me some materials, and it was my first reference to the Trekka,” he mentioned.
First although, a private declaration of bias on the author’s half. I’m the Trekka’s historian, having produced the primary telling of its story in a radio documentary in 2001, and wrote the e book The Trekka Dynasty in 2003. I now part-own two Trekkas.
In 2016, I put Starek in contact with a farming household within the Horowhenua which had a barn-stored Trekka needing a brand new dwelling.
It’s now restored and a part of a 250 car and equipment assortment in Starek’s personal museum of utility car and equipment (Muzeum Užitkové Techniky), south-west of Prague. It was one cease on my path to go to among the Czech Trekkas.
“It’s a really attention-grabbing story. It’s cooperation between Czechoslovakia and New Zealand,” mentioned Starek earlier than taking me on a Trekka outing by way of the Bohemian countryside.
“Folks have no idea the Trekka. After I cease at a gas station, they ask me why does it have Škoda emblems (on the hubcaps)?”
Petr Beneda, who works in advertising and marketing at Škoda’s headquarters in Mlada Boleslav, purchased his Trekka by way of a barely completely different path.
Beneda had labored in Sydney within the early 2000s, as Škoda – after being purchased by VW – reintroduced the marque to Australia, earlier than he returned to the Czech Republic in 2012.
“I obtained an electronic mail from my good friend who requested whether or not I’d have an interest within the Trekka – there was an proprietor in Sydney promoting a Trekka and I purchased it, and introduced it to the Czech Republic simply earlier than Covid,” he informed me.
“The story round Trekka and the export of Škoda components to New Zealand, and because of the native rules, constructing their very own automotive primarily based on Škoda mechanics, is a very nice story,” he mentioned.
Time for a pause simply to inform that story. In publish World Struggle Two New Zealand, the federal government managed the economic system by way of import licensing – making virtually each imported good topic to authorities approval, with excessive worth items equivalent to automobiles essentially the most tightly managed.
Most new automobiles within the Sixties had been assembled in New Zealand, and Škoda importer Phil Andrews negotiated a strategy to authorities approval, by pitching the idea of low-cost mechanicals from behind the Iron Curtain, bolted to a physique designed and inbuilt Auckland.
An extraordinary 70 p.c “native content material” equated to extra native jobs, and fewer drain on the nation’s overseas reserves.
For Škoda, it was a novel alternative to turn into concerned globally in one thing extra than simply supplying full automobiles – a step that was a notable one in its personal historical past.
It’s that historic step which Škoda re-embraced within the mid-2010s, partly due to a household connection between the manufacturing unit’s museum in Mlada Boleslav, and the event of the Trekka.
Michal Velebny is the museum’s head of the restoration workshop and automotive assortment. His grandfather Josef had been a senior designer, and within the mid-Sixties hung out in New Zealand as Motor Holdings ready to assemble the Škoda 1000MB Sabre, and speak was then afoot of a farm car.
“He met the designer [George Taylor] who already began some work on it and so they obtained collectively and designed Trekka as we all know it at this time,” mentioned Velebny as we toured the museum.
When Michal Velebny moved to the museum function, his quest so as to add a Trekka to the gathering led him to at least one restored in Western Australia – one among about 50 exported throughout the Tasman.
It now sits on a multi-tiered rack, alongside different Škoda ventures to make utility automobiles in Pakistan and Turkiye.
“Trekka has a really particular place for me as a result of it’s part of the lifetime of my grandfather,” mentioned Velebny.
“He wasn’t right here regularly as a result of he went for 3 years to New Zealand, then two years to Pakistan, then three years to Turkey, so throughout a short while between he visited us and we talked about his initiatives.”
Official recognition as a part of Škoda’s museum assortment was a step in the direction of the Trekka’s Czech “homecoming”, however the huge recognition got here by way of an uncommon advertising and marketing push.
Škoda moved into the SUV section of the automotive market in 2018, with the primary deliveries of its Kodiaq. In devising methods to face out, the Czech carmaker determined the Trekka was a catchy story to promote as an early transfer into the SUV market.
The carmaker used for media and promotional functions, a Trekka lovingly restored by a neighborhood specialist Jiri Valach. Valach’s Trekka had been well-known round Wanaka in its day, and the restoration retained a number of early proprietor Roger Taylor’s dwelling modifications.
These ranged from a gap roof to help possum searching, a snorkel air consumption, to a shovel clamped on the again for when the going obtained actually powerful.
There at the moment are a string of YouTube movies of the ex-Wanaka Trekka within the arms of motoring media, and it was the premise for a 1:43 scale mannequin by German modelmaker Avenue 43.
Additionally with us on the tour of the Škoda museum in Mlada Boleslav is Josef Kaplan, one other native connection to the New Zealand story.
“My father was posted out to New Zealand within the late 60s and early 70s as a technical rep for Škoda,” mentioned Kaplan.
“We lived there for 3 years and so Škoda in New Zealand usually, and Trekka, had been a part of my life. I used to be about 14 at the moment, so I do bear in mind quite a bit, going to the manufacturing unit and the constructing of the Trekka.”
As many as 10 Trekkas have made their strategy to the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia, to be present in non-public museums, and within the arms of basic Škoda collectors.
“It’s undoubtedly good to see the automotive [in Škoda’s Museum] as a result of it’s a part of the Škoda manufacturing unit historical past,” mentioned Kaplan.
Again in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are a number of dozen Trekkas both on the street legally, or on the way in which, because of severe restorations.
The Museum of Transport and Know-how in Auckland owns a pre-production prototype and a flat-deck ute, and Te Papa owns one which varieties a part of the set up “That is the Trekka” by artist Michael Stevenson, which was exhibited on the Venice artwork biennale in 2003.
Others are in non-public arms (I’m the half-owner of two) and in non-public museums from the Far North, by way of Southwards close to Wellington, to Wanaka.
Todd Niall’s go to to the Czech Republic was privately funded journey.
