Skoda 422

The 422 at a glance

Why Skoda built a smaller car in 1930

In 1925 Skoda had taken over the Laurin & Klement car works in Mladá Boleslav. Belt production started there in April 1929. The cars it built were solid but large and expensive, so a smaller, cheaper model was needed when the world economic crisis began to hit Czechoslovakia.

The 422 was presented in spring 1930 as the smallest and youngest model of Skoda's range of conventional rear-wheel-drive cars. German Wikipedia describes it as the smaller sister model of the Skoda 430. In the same period the car business was organised as ASAP, a company of the Škoda Works group, and the 422 was among its first products.

The old version of this page noted that the 422 had nothing fundamentally new in design or engineering. That is fair: its importance lay in price and size, not in technology. The bigger change came in 1933, as described below. The full company background is in our history of Skoda.

Engine, chassis and brakes

The engine is a water-cooled side-valve four-cylinder with a bore of 65 mm and a stroke of 90 mm, giving 1,195 cc. It produces 16 kW (22 hp) at 2,800 rpm, with a Zenith carburettor and 12-volt battery ignition. A dry single-plate clutch and a three-speed gearbox, bolted to the engine, drive the rear wheels through a propeller shaft.

The 40-litre fuel tank sits under the bonnet, against the rear wall of the engine bay. The chassis is a rectangular frame of riveted steel U-sections that narrows towards the front. Both axles are rigid and hang on longitudinal leaf springs.

All four wheels have drum brakes, worked mechanically. Brakes on all four wheels were still worth mentioning on a small car in 1930, as the old version of this page pointed out. The pressed-steel disc wheels carry 4.50-18 or 4.75-18 tyres, and the cars were built with right-hand drive, because Czechoslovakia drove on the left until 1939.

Skoda 422 specifications

By our calculation, the 422 carried about 59 kg per kW in its lightest form and close to 69 kg per kW as a heavy closed car. A modern small car with 70 kW and 1,100 kg carries about 16 kg per kW, roughly a quarter of the 422's figure, as the power-to-weight calculator shows. The mpg conversions follow our fuel economy converter.

Body styles, taxis and police cars

The 422 was offered with an unusually wide range of bodies for a small car. Most were built at the Mladá Boleslav works, whose new body shop was among the most modern in Europe. The bodies were of mixed construction, with steel panels on a wooden frame.

Czech magazine Automobil Revue, which traced the model's history, records that Karosa converted tourers for the gendarmerie from November 1931, with deliveries in early 1932. The old version of this page also mentioned an electric windscreen wiper, cloth-covered door panels and drop-down door glass, which it called rare for the time.

Prices in 1930 crowns

The figures are Czechoslovak crowns at 1930 prices. A direct conversion into euros would be misleading, because the crown, wages and car prices of 1930 have no stable link to today's money. The useful comparison is with rivals of the same year.

Skoda 422 compared with the Praga Piccolo and the 420

Compared with the Praga Piccolo, the 422 had a larger engine and still cost 7,000 crowns less as an open car, about 18 % less. That price advantage, rather than any technical feature, explains why it sold well during the crisis.

From the 422 to the backbone-frame 420

The 422 ended in summer 1932. Its successor, the Skoda 420, was presented in April 1933 as a "progressive people's car" and Skoda's answer to the economic crisis. Designer Josef Zubatý had returned to Czechoslovakia in 1931 and developed the new concept in Skoda's Prague office from summer 1932.

The 420 was the first Skoda with a backbone frame and independent suspension. Skoda's own history notes that it weighed about 200 kg less than the 422; its complete car weighed about 730 kg, the same as a bare 422 chassis. The backbone idea, developed from the work of Hans Ledwinka at Tatra, was then used on Skoda cars into the 1960s, from the Popular to the pre-war Rapid.

The old version of this page said that 5,435 cars were built in two years. Both German Wikipedia and Automobil Revue give a much lower figure of about 3,400 to 3,500, so the higher number is not repeated here. The claim that the 422 helped Skoda through the crisis comes from the company's historians and fits its price position, but it cannot be measured with published sales data.

Collecting a Skoda 422 today

Surviving 422s are rare and are mostly seen at Czech club events and in museums. Because so many bodies were offered, two cars can look completely different. Points to check:

• Body: whether the body is original or a later replacement, and whether its wooden frame is sound.
• Engine and gearbox: the 1,195 cc side-valve four and the three-speed gearbox should be the correct type.
• Brakes: the mechanical drums need careful adjustment to stop a car of about one tonne.
• Papers: taxi, post or gendarmerie history adds interest but needs documents.

For more cars from the same decade, browse our 1930s classics; current and past Skoda models are on the Skoda catalogue page.