Skoda 120L (Estelle) - was it a terrible car or are journalists wrong?!

Skoda 120L

Picture the scene: you’re on a budget and you’re looking for a car. You might’ve been looking at secondhand motors and decided it was finally time to take the plunge and go for something new.

if it had been the 1980s when this was new on the forecourt, you might’ve been looking at other budget options such as Lada Rivas, Yugos, FSO or even the homegrown Reliant Rialto or maybe even a 2CV because it was in the same sort of price bracket and a known commodity.

People love to be snobby and laugh now, but these budget motors were getting many out onto the roads of Great Britain. In the mid 80s, 84/85, 40,000 Yugos, Ladas, Skodas and FSOs were registered in Britain.

Sure, these weren’t enormous figures, but it was nearly 6 times the sales of Alfas and Lancias. Budget motoring was bigger business than the naysayers would like to conceed to.

Coming back to the 120L, It was once dubbed ‘the worst new car in Britain’ which is utterly fatalistic and as this test shows, wholly unjustified.

It was an easy target for journalists looking to be safely sensational, but it was budget motoring for not only the home market, but every sales market.

However, budget motoring with the 120L didn’t mean miserable motoring and in fact, the 1174cc engine would, on tests conducted in the mid 80s, get to around 90mph (higher than the manufacturer advertised top speed) and get to 60 miles per hour in around 20 seconds. Not incredible, not terrible and something one could live with even today.

There are other benefits to going for the 120L which weren’t standard on every budget motor such as the ingenious fold down rear seats for extra hidden storage room, child-proof locks on the rear doors, locking petrol cap, a warning noise for the lights, low fuel warning light and even a tool kit in case of emergencies which had the little essentials like light bulbs and fuses.

These might seem elementary today, but cars being sold in the late 90s didn’t have some of these details and budget Brit motors lacked many of them too. The 120L offering really wasn’t all that raw of a deal.

Early reviews from period talk about problems with handling, but by this point in time, things seem to have been ironed out a little. The steering is relatively light for the size, responsive and for a new buyer stepping into one of these for the first time or trading up from a clapped out second hand car, it would’ve felt all the better still.

it’s always important to consider the context in which first buyers could’ve and would’ve encountered these cars.

It’s also vital to consider the origin of the car; which was in the former Czechoslovakia and whilst by this time the design came to market it appeared a bit dated with the rear engine layout, there are two stories as to why this happened: the first is that Skoda didn’t have the funds to sink into FWD tech and the other is that Russia didn’t give permission for a FWD car to be made by Skoda lest it overshadow their efforts.

Whichever may be true, and there might be a glimmer of truth in both, the 120L might’ve lacked FWD but what it didn’t lack was a bit of a spice up on British soil, whereby it was given the name Estelle. This was the work of a marketing agency linked to Skoda in the UK.

Overall, the car did alright. It sold over 120,000 units in the UK across the lifepsan and it did something even more important than get people out on the road, it converted them into Skoda fanatics.

They might’ve had their problems, but the balancing act between calamity and cost must’ve not been too testy, because look where we are today: the Brit brands it came up against are gone and long forgotten by many young motorists and you’ll be hard pushed to find a car park in Great Britain without a Skoda.

it might not be to everyone’s tastes, but the 120L is an important piece of motoring history.