It was September 3, 1996, when production of the first generation Skoda Octavia began at Mlada Boleslav, in a newly opened part of the plant.
The vehicle’s development began in 1992, approximately one year after the Volkswagen Group took over and it was based on the then-new Golf Mk4 platform. Skoda developed the original Octavia’s body structure using the latest CAD (Computer Aided Design) technology.
1996 was also the year when customers took delivery of the first Octavias, choosing between two four-cylinder petrol engines and a turbodiesel.
In 1998, the family welcomed its second member, the Octavia Combi and one year later, customers were able to order one with all-wheel drive. The last example from the first generation was produced in November 2010, and by that time, around 970,000 sedans and more than 470,000 estates were delivered.
Between 2004 and 2013, Skoda assembled 1.6 million units of the second generation Octavia, out of which 900,000 were wagons, with the third and most recent version of the model being around since November 2012.
The Skoda Octavia is considered “the heart of the brand” and with good reason, as this is the company’s best-seller, with more than 5 million units leaving the production halls in Mlada Boleslav and other plants in Russia, Kazakhstan, India and China since its birth.
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