Miloslav Zapadlo

"There was a planned economy, the Russians were making Zhigulis (VAZ-2101 cars) and we would produce something better? That was impossible. It went on and on, and dad was always fighting to build something other than the Škoda 120. It ended up the way it ended up. The last Škoda 120 before the Favorit started to be built and that was bad. Dad was reprimanded for not following party discipline. It always comes down to something. My dad never felt the need to sell anything to anyone. He didn't even need money, money was no good in those days. They blamed him for getting in the way and not following party discipline. Hájek, the head of the regional committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, initiated an investigation, and then it went down the party line. There's always something... now they'll find his mistress, it used to be like this. My dad left the AZNP and was arrested in Ruzyně for two months, and it was just such a cold summer, so he said he was shivering the cold there."

"At that time I had a cottage in Harrachov, every day in all kinds of weather I made the journey Harrachov-Mladá Boleslav, Harrachov-Prague and that was my training. Then we had training Škoda 130 RS for the Monte Carlo Rally. Unfortunately, some sections, like the upper part of Col de Turini, weren’t plowed. They only cleared it the day before the race. So we had to drive blind. But between the barriers, it was easier, so we just managed to get by. I remember that on the first day, I was pushing harder than Jura liked, and we had one big close call. On the second day, we slowed down a lot, and Vašek Blahna, who raced regularly, managed to slot in ahead of us. We just wanted to finish the race. But then they made a big fuss about how fantastic we were. For me, it was just like any other race."