Engines have been designed, developed and built in Mladá Boleslav for 125 years, making Škoda one of the longest producing engine manufacturers in the world. Since 1899, the company has built more than 15 million engines, including technically outstanding units such as Europe's first eight-cylinder in-line engine in 1907, the die-cast aluminum blocks for the one-liter class (1964) and modern MPI and TSI engines.
Historic milestones: motorcycles, aircraft engines, V8 car engines
Just four years after Václav Laurin and Václav Klement founded their company in 1895, they expanded the Slavia brand's range of bicycles to include two-wheelers with auxiliary petrol engines. Shortly afterwards, in 1899, they presented their first motorcycle, the Slavia Type A. This machine had a single-cylinder engine with 1.25 hp developed by Laurin & Klement. Its production marks the beginning of the 125-year tradition of engine construction in Mladá Boleslav.
In 1904, the world's first motorcycle with an in-line four-cylinder engine appeared with the L&K Type CCCC. The following year, a four-stroke internal combustion engine, a water-cooled one-liter V2 unit, powered the Voiturette A, the first automobile from Laurin & Klement. In 1907, Laurin & Klement presented the six-seater Type FF, which had the first eight-cylinder in-line engine of its kind in Central Europe. In 1910, the company presented its first aircraft engine, the L&K Type EL.
Large-scale production of engines began in Mladá Boleslav in 1929 under the new brand name Škoda. At that time, the range included reliable one-liter four-cylinder, in-line six-cylinder and eight-cylinder engines as well as diesel units. The introduction of die-cast aluminum for the cylinder blocks of the Škoda 1000MB in 1964 marked a special moment for engine development and production in Mladá Boleslav. This originally Czech patent was considered groundbreaking at the time.
Today, Škoda Auto uses die-cast aluminum for the modern engines of the EA 211 series, which went into production in 2012, starting with the then new 1.0 MPI. Škoda Auto now manages the development of all petrol engines up to 1.6 liters for the entire Volkswagen Group. Škoda owes this central role in the Volkswagen Group in part to the EA 211 engine series, which is celebrating the production of its five millionth unit this year.
