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On the road

Entrepreneurs struggle to find a niche for handcrafted cars

By Victor Velek
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 26th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The timeless Gordon is one of a few handmade car projects produced by APC, which include a vehicle that caters to disabled drivers.
Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
Vladimír Friml developed the roadster at a fraction of the usual cost.
PLZEŇ, WEST BOHEMIA
This small workshop on the outskirts of Plzeň, west Bohemia, is packed with wheels, engines and other spare car parts. The shop belongs to Auto Projekt Centrum (APC), an automotive company consisting of three dedicated car enthusiasts. One of their technicians is fiddling with parts from the company’s new concept car at a workbench.
APC’s workshop is home to Vladimír Friml, one of the minds behind the Gordon, a luxurious roadster that received rave reviews when it was introduced a decade ago, only to have its financing falter. Its vintage look was inspired by the Aero 50, an icon of the Czechoslovak automotive industry, and the car sold for a brisk 2.2 million Kč ($112,000).
Now, however, the roadster’s place in the shop has been replaced by a prototype of a small car designed for the disabled. The project began after APC grew tired of waiting for research and development money that would-be financiers had promised. “We emptied all our accounts and covered it by ourselves,” Friml says.
“It’s still a secret project,” says APC head Friml. “I don’t want it presented prematurely.” He plans to reveal the car next year at a trade fair specializing in products for the disabled, and a lot is riding on its positive introduction on the market.
“It must be a success,” Friml says. “There is so much money and effort behind it.”
While large factories in Mladá Boleslav and Kolín churn out thousands of Škodas, Toyotas, Citroens and Peugeots — with Hyundais from Moravia soon to be added to the list — there are still vehicles produced the old-fashioned way in the Czech Republic: by hand in workshops.
Friml’s shop is one in a series of small islands that form an archipelago of domestic craftsmanship struggling to find niches in the foreign-controlled automotive market. And, like the risks that come with all entrepreneurship, not all of these workshops have been successful.
The Gordon was conceived by Friml and his Gordon Car company colleagues in the ’90s.
During the most glorious days, there were 20 people dedicated to the roadster. But, soon after it premiered in 1997, the car’s production was dealt a heavy blow when one of Gordon Cars’ employees embezzled money, which led to the project’s collapse in 1998.
“The company went bankrupt,” Friml says. His side company, APC, later acquired the torpedoed firm and rights to produce the Gordon. APC now consists of Friml, a designer and a technician.
“For five years we were recovering from the blow,” Friml says. “Finding the right partner or investor is an incredibly difficult problem.”
As a result, only 19 Gordons have been built in the past decade; 12 ride local roads and the rest are scattered throughout the world, in Russia, Germany, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Friml has not lost hope for the roadster, citing its pedigree and craftsmanship, which gives it a sense of timelessness.
“Everything was handmade and the design will never grow old,” he says, as the car was designed to evoke the much-lauded Czechoslovak design tradition of the first half of the 20th century. “We wanted a car with Czech roots,” he says. “That’s why we chose to start with the Aero 50, which was nicknamed the Czech Jaguar.”
Friml believes a strong partner could reinvigorate the Gordon car line, and APC is currently negotiating with a Japanese investor about just that, he says.
While pursuing the Gordon’s resurrection, Friml also expects APC’s new prototype to be ready by January 2008, shining in a metallic-orange coating.
The uniquely designed vehicle was first conceived almost three years ago. “An invalid in a wheelchair gets into the car through the front and drives the car while remaining in the wheelchair.”
Being an automotive expert who has worked for the Motor Vehicles Research Institute and two domestic carmakers, Friml has developed the car for a fraction of the cost such a project would consume if designed by a large manufacturer.
“The development cost millions [of crowns], while in large companies it would have cost hundreds of millions,” he says.
The car will be sold for up to 300,000 Kč ($15,300), roughly the same price one would pay for the cheapest Škoda Fabia redesigned for driving by hand, according to Friml.
In the shadow of giants
While the Gordon’s plight could serve as a cautionary tale, several other small companies have also recently begun producing their own custom vehicles, including Michal Hradečný, head of the car manufacturer Kaipan, who can be seen as Friml’s more successful counterpart.
Hradečný founded Kaipan as an importer of replicas of the Lotus Seven roadster. However, it soon began making its own cars inspired by the Lotus, building their sports car on the dowdy frame of the Škoda Favorit, a family car designed during the last decade of communist rule.
Since February 2007, Kaipan’s third model has been moving well. “We’re selling about 10 vehicles a month,” Hradečný says, each of which can cost up to 457,000 Kč. “By the end of the year, we’re expecting to sell some 70 cars.”
“It’s amazing what he has achieved,” Friml says of Hradečný.
Another, possibly more successful, story is that of Pavel Blata, the former motorbike racer. His self-named company has grown gradually, first producing minibikes and portable scooters.
Now it is ready to take a decisive step forward by entering the regular motorcycle market: Blata’s 125cc motorcycle is undergoing certification tests and should be on the market by the end of the year.
“Next year, we plan to sell some 1,000 machines,” says Tomáš Karpeta, Blata’s head of international sales.
Whether Friml will have similar successes remains to be seen. However, this car enthusiast is already looking beyond the two irons he has in the fire.
“We’re not sleeping,” Friml says as he points to a couple of design sketches. “Here, there are designs of a new generation of Gordon and the concept of a buggy for Mediterranean resorts.”

Victor Velek can be reached at vvelek@praguepost.com


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