I own a Skoda. My one complaint is that the fuel consumption display gives mpg only (made for the British market). Otherwise I can confirm that its look and feel is very much VW - I have owned VW Golfs in the past.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stanislav Jakuba Sent: 15 November 2011 22:53 To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51327] Re: United Streetcar, doing it right I am glad I opened this e-mail. Many, many years ago I was contacted about the Portland (and other West Coast locations) street-cars and troley-busses imports. The design and many components are all of Czechoslovakian, and later Czech Republic, origing. Being of Czech descent and knowledgeable about that industry, I were to play some role in those dealings. The opposite coast location and being busy with my projects, I soon stopped to follow the dealings. The design is Czech, and I enjoyed the cars when visiting Portland. Concerning metric, I would not have stepped inside the cars had they been designed by Czechs in inches; a disaster would be imminent. (Anyone who believes that AirBus planes (the components designed in Europe) are in inches has no idea how often would those plane been falling due to design, manufacturing and assembly errors). The expanded drawing show also the Czech drafting practice which has generally been up-to-date with ISO. Skoda is the name of the present exporter but the name has changed over the decades. An armament and heavy industrial equipment incl. large locomotives manufacturer for some 150 years, Skoda acquired the car and truck company Laurin & Clement a century ago and then continued production under the Skoda mark. But the car factory has not been a part of the Skoda Concern since it was separated at the nationalization of all industries during the communistic regime after VW2. With the fall of communism, the car factory was bought by VW and the Skodas became derivatives of certain VW models. Anyone following Tour de France cannot escape the Skoda cars there. The original Skoda Hdqrts and factories had been in the town of Plzen, west of Prague. The town is better known for its outstanding Pilsen Urquell beer, and in America, for Patton's army reaching that town a few weeks before the end of VW2. The army could not continue the 60 km east to liberate Prague because of the Yalta agreement. Lucky U.S. soldiers - spending the last few days of war battling Pilsen Urquell and courting Bohemian girls. (Prague had to wait for the Russian army; it arrived 2 days after WW2 officially ended.) I thought you might be interested. The Czech street cars are apparently popular - I was surprises to encounter them even in Australia. Stan J. On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]> wrote: United Streetcar is a Portland, Oregon company that manufactures two models of streetcars. www.unitedstreetcar.com <http://www.unitedstreetcar.com/> Click on Products, then expand the drawing, and you will be pleased. Carleton
