WHY PRAGA IS CZECHING INTO UK MOTORSPORT
When a new model from a car manufacturer with a 114-year history begins racing in the UK, you would expect that the company would be a well-known marque. But that was not the case when Praga’s R1 began competing on these shores in 2019. And there’s a simple reason why: communism.
Praga was very successful during the 1930s, at a time when there were dozens of car manufacturers in Czechoslovakia. It dwarfed Skoda, for example, and didn’t just build road cars, but also trucks, buses, tanks, tractors and more. But that all changed after the Second World War.
“Communism came to Czechoslovakia and there was a political decision made that Praga will stop manufacturing cars, that will shift to Skoda, and Praga will concentrate on buses and trucks,” explains Praga engineering director Jan Martinek. By the time communism fell in 1989, Praga had faded into obscurity around the rest of the world, Martinek saying that “it wasn’t easy to stand up to the competition from established countries”.
“You can’t start mass-producing cars again out of nothing, so [first] it was the go-karts,” he continues. “Praga started building go-karts and Praga is one
