Škoda, now successfully part of the Volkswagen empire, are making excellent – if painfully boring – cars. Prior to Volkswagen’s ownership though, they were an automotive joke in Europe, ranked alongside Lada at the bottom of the motoring barrel, a constant reminder of the folly of Communism.

Prior to Communisms’s vice-like grip however, Škoda were actually a thoroughly respectable forward-thinking vehicle manufacturer. This is one of their cars from that time, the absolutely beautiful Škoda 1100 OHC, which is probably as close to a real life version of ‘Speed Racer‘ that we’ll ever see.

This gorgeous mini-figure scale recreation of one of Eastern Europe’s most wonderful automotive efforts comes from previous bloggee František Hajdekr, and not only is there an extensive gallery of images available, František has also included building instructions and a ‘how to’ video so that you can build your very own 1100 OHC too. You can find all of the above at František’s photostream – click the link in the text to check it out.