The first proper year was 1993. For Skoda, that is. Prior to that, the Czech brand had been imported into Ireland, but only in fits and starts, and never with what you might call a strategy. In 1993, though, two years after Skoda had become part of the mighty Volkswagen Group, an Irish HQ was established and a 30-year journey began.
10,000 sales in 2023
Skoda Ireland has just delivered its 10,000th 2023 car - an all-electric Enyaq, which was sold to a customer in the north east. It's the first year that Skoda has found more than 10,000 customers in one year in Ireland. Which means that while Skoda's Irish story really began with the Favorit (a compact hatch with design input from Giugiaro, but very much still a product of Skoda's old Communist era) and has reached something of an apogee with a €50,000 all-electric SUV.
That Favorit, and the Forman estate version, initially struggled to gain a foothold in the Irish market. Just 76 Irish buyers took the plunge in 1993, and while 12 dealers signed up to the brand, things perhaps didn't look all that rosy at first.
That original dozen dealers have since become known as The 12 Apostles, because they were the only ones who believed in the brand. That belief was about to pay off in a big way, though. After the Favorit came the Felicia - essentially a heavily facelifted and re-engineered Favorit which was an improvement but a car that still struggled to keep up technically with its major competition.
The first Octavia
Alongside that Felicia, though, was the first Skoda Octavia. This was the first truly modern car from the brand, and it was basically a Volkswagen Golf MkIV underneath - a fact that was carefully and usefully publicised. That Octavia was a huge hit, especially in rural Ireland, thanks to a mix of efficient, reliable diesel engines, and a massive boot. Not to mention a bargain price point.
The first Octavia RS made arguably less of an impact in Ireland - we've never been ones to go for the high-performance model - but tales of a serious hot hatch Skoda nevertheless began to make waves, possibly stoked by rumours that Skoda secretly fitted the early press cars not with the 180hp turbocharged engine that was advertised, but with a 225hp unit pinched from the Audi TT... The Octavia still sells strongly. In spite of the general drift towards SUVs, it's still Skoda's best-selling Irish model, and currently the ninth-best-selling car in Ireland.
By 1999, the frankly brilliant first-generation Fabia supermini was introduced, and that set Skoda Ireland up for a record year in 2000. In a year when 240,000 new cars were sold in Ireland, Skoda shifted a very healthy 6,000. It was just a foretaste...
Overtaking Ford and Opel
Over the next few years, Skoda grew slowly but steadily in Ireland, but there were some superstar models along the way. The second-generation Octavia was an especially brilliant car, as was the Yeti, while the oddball Roomster showed just how practical a compact car could be, albeit it never really took off in a sales sense. The early versions of the Superb (the original one was really just a stretched Volkswagen Passat) proved that the hubristic name wasn't going to be a problem for Skoda. That second-generation Superb, the one with all the legroom, is still a landmark car for the brand.
It was swiftly followed by an expansion into the SUV markets, with the big Kodiaq arriving to star alongside the Yeti, which was itself eventually replaced by the Karoq and Kamiq. The tiny Citigo and the cheap-and-cheerful Rapid kept things affordable for buyers.
By now, Skoda was rapidly becoming a sales juggernaut, and in 2019 it slipped past Ford - once an unassailable best-seller in the Irish market - to take a top-five sales chart place. That year Skoda also topped 9,000 sales but just missed out on the magic 10,000-in-one-year figure.
That has now been achieved, copper-fastening Skoda's position as one of the best-loved car brands in the country.
John Donegan, Skoda Ireland brand director has been with Skoda since 2010 and said: "Customer satisfaction has always been our number one focus at Skoda Ireland; however, it was important to couple this with simple sales objectives or milestones. One of our earliest targets was to overtake Opel which we achieved in 2015, followed in 2020, by breaking into the top-five car brands and exceeding eight-per-cent share of the car market. The 10,000 milestone was achieved in October. For this I would like to sincerely thank our colleagues at Volkswagen Group Ireland, the Skoda dealer network, our factory partners at Škoda-Auto, Volkswagen Financial Services and above all our customers for their support and trust in Škoda. With the 10,000 milestone behind us we have now set our sights on a third-place position in the Irish car market."