Horton ŠKODA / ŠKODA Owners Club Open Day

Added: 28 June 2019

A corner of Lincolnshire was temporarily ‘SKODA central’ for the day as Horton SKODA in Lincoln hosted their first annual Open Day in conjunction with the SKODA Owners Club.

Over 150 attendees enjoyed a display of the “Horton Heritage Collection” of historic SKODA vehicles and over 30 members of the SKODA Owners Club GB (SOCGB) displayed their own classic SKODA cars.

Visitors were also able to test their driving skills on the Scalextric Challenge and the Horton WRC Rally Simulator.  Expression Events were also on hand, keeping people energized with free tea, coffee and cakes from the SKODA Coffee and Cake Bar and everyone enjoyed a free ice cream (or two!) from the SKODA ice cream bike.  Trained technicians were also on hand, offering expert technical advice, free vehicle health checks and condition videos for visitors.  The full SKODA range of new cars was available to test drive throughout the day, with the Kodiaq vRS proving very popular!

Oliver Horton (Horton SKODA Owner) explained ““As one of the oldest SKODA retailers in the UK, I remember selling the older models when they were new.  I have been curating a collection of these older SKODA cars for about a decade now, which are mainly made up of cars from since we had the franchise in the late 80s, many of which we supplied originally, have maintained and then taken back in part exchange.  I just couldn’t bring myself to trade them on or heaven forbid scrap Estelles, Favorit and Felicias – so I started keeping them!  We now have around 40 older SKODA cars in what has become the Horton Heritage Collection as well as every poster, brochure and piece of signage we have ever had from SKODA.”

An offhand conversation with a local member of the SKODA Owners Club led to the event being created.  Oliver continues “After chatting to James Goulding of the SOCGB, who himself owns a number of early Estelles, we decided that we should organise a day to display our cars as opposed to them sitting in storage all year round”

“We invited the members of the Owners Club as well as our own Horton SKODA Customers and we were delighted with the turnout.  We had a large delegation from the North West section of the Owners Club as well as ‘Team Blue’ who only drive Race Blue Octavia vRS models”

“Both James and I would like to thank all the participants that displayed their cars on the day as well all the members of the public that visited and all the staff that helped to deliver a fantastic experience for everybody”

For the day, Horton SKODA commissioned Expression Events (who work on behalf of SKODA UK) to deliver the SKODA Events Trailer, Refreshment Bar, Scalextric Challenge and the Ice Cream bike.  Horton SKODA staff worked tirelessly to empty the site of New and Used cars as well as filling the showroom with a display of the Horton Heritage Collection and creating a full representation of the model range and demonstration fleet. 

Oliver concluded “I was delighted with the attendance on the day and was very happy to be able to share our collection with like-minded SKODA enthusiasts and enjoy the cars brought to us for display.  I very much hope to be able to repeat the event in years to come!”