Thanks Ian for coming back to test the new version of the Skoda. Great video, I'm glad you enjoyed it.. Multi layer steel headgasket fitted, remote thermostat, all done at home in my drive. Brakes stop it but will be upgraded soon.

Love sleepers like this - to keep the external originality is the key for me.

I worked as a mechanic at a Skoda dealer just when the Estelles was being replaced by the Favorit so I was trained on the newer stuff, Then one day the mechanics from Bracknell came down they were the official rally team mechanics and stood there in the workshop while I was doing an Estelle service then said those words "why aren't you using the tools from the tool wall" these guys took tools off the tool wall removed the carb and reset it, reset the points showed me how to use an "at the time" outdated crypton tuner....OMG even the customer phoned up after having her car back to find out what we had done, we just reset the car to factory settings. Every Estelle I serviced after that went like hot snooot

Makes me sad, knowing we will never see light but affordable new cars again.

I went to York raceway with a friend of mine about 30 years ago, who was trying to gain his drag race licence. There was what looked like a bog standard brown skoda estelle taking part in the racing, he managed to win every heat he was entered in. Curiosity got the better of us and we asked him what was powering it. He showed us. Turned out to be a turbo charged audi 100 5 cylnder unit he shoehorned into the rear. Damn it was quick.

Der Wolf im Schafspelz, sehr gut, solch einen Skoda hatte ich 1981/1982 einen 105S Ein Klasse Video, vielen Dank aus Hamburg. Grüße an Ian und alle Zuschauer.

Škoda weren't making bad cars no worse than anything by British Leyland or Austin Rover at time. I rate Škoda very highly today, especially the Octavia and Superb.

Back in the day these weren't cool. After all these years it's actually nice to see one again regardless of the mods. It's now officially cool! 😎❤️👍

Ian, seeing you in full hoon mode, made my night! Also, credit to the owner for building such a sleeper. She sounds amazing!

Early 90's my family and I were on holiday down the south coast of the UK, there was a lovely looking skoda 136 coupe on our caravan site, it passed us one day, we were doing 85 ish, it went past like we were doing 20mph, found out later it had a 911 engine stuffed in the back of it, must have caught a lot of powerful cars out cos it looked standerd apart from minilite wheels and the rear window louvres.

What a clean install! I am deeply impressed.

One to surprise the many drivers of modern cars who heavily criticise the Skoda, good on him. 👍

I know my dad put a lot of work into this Estelle and having been in it I can say it is a fantastic little machine, nice video hub!

Holy balls the fact that it fits so nicely as well (no doubt a LOT of work) and looks stunning in the engine bay is just amazing! I commented a year ago that my father had a white Estelle and he wishes he never got rid of it but it was saved and had an engine swap as well as the old engine blew a head and was coughing up all sorts of yogurt. This is amazing and I am so happy to see it back! Awesome video Mr Hubnut! :D

6:30 If you'd skidded off the road there you'd have had Shredded Wheat as well as Special K.

I love it when the channel turns into HoonNut and the smiles appear 😈 Absolutely love a sleeper like that, credit for the owner that engine bay looked perfect with the wire tuck 👌🏻

This reminds me of the Lada estate fitted with a Lancia twin-cam. That looks bog standard too and that's the best thing about cars like these!

I'm amazed bit's of the dashboard pop out when flooring it. That K-Series engine sounds amazing with bike carbs.

I was expecting a Honda K20, but nice to see ITB's for a change

I've always liked those.! As a kid in the 80's my neighbour had two of them, one was nicer than the other, it was white, he had lovely alloys (when alloys were special), he lowered it, fitted a big bore exhaust & he told me he'd done all sorts of magic to the engine. I just loved it.... It was when he pointed out it was rear engined, just like a Porsche, that I fell in love.!

Seen micks skoda in the flesh.. and it's a work of Art!! cracking conversion and completely understated Absolutely awesome machine

I love the Q car aspect, but the brakes and suspension should have been beefed up.

So what you're saying is a BMW motorcycle engine for Elly is on the cards now 😂

On the cooking 5 port engines, they alloy block kept the weight in the tail down, but the siamesed Iron head kept costs down. The alloy 8 port heads could produce some decent power, 130bhp was achievable still street driveable.

Oh, my childhood memories are coming back. Skoda 742 (or Estelle as you guys know it) was the only car where I was regularly sick as a child. I can smell the gasoline, hear the noise from rear and feel the vibrations of the small Skoda engine roaring uphill while the car barely moved forward.

I live in New Zealand. We assembled Skodas here from the 1960s. They sold quite well. The Estelle model didn't though, back in the 1980s. This model that you are showing is nice, and I like the color. The Police now use Skoda cars here.

I think the Rover K series has one of the best induction noises you can get from a 4cyl

I do like the silliness of this car. This looks like a lot of fun.

Fond memories of my dad driving his brand new Skoda Estelle in a vibrant bright almost orange colour! It came with a factory touch up paint pot for dealing with stone chips. Somehow the air cooled engine over heated and caused the HT leads to melt, it was repaired under warranty. I remember my dad describing the gear change as like trying to move a wooden spoon through porridge, had no discernable gear shift gate, just 1st gear was somewhere over in that corner, 2nd was somewhere down here to the left and so on... A lovely engine note on that modded version.

I'm in love... this thing is absolutly awesome! I already loved these Skoda's, but with a conversion like this? Pure gold.

I'm slightly conflicted too.. Skodas are getting VERY rare now a days, and for that reason i'd like them to be stock. ..but njah.. Yoiu gotta love this, imho. It's a fun-loving creation. Both thumbs up to the owner and builder from me. ..and to you for giving it the beans, and enjoying it. Fun video to watch :)

As much as I like to see cars of my youth and older in original condition, that is a fantastic car, I love it.

As a fan of old Skodas, this was absolutely brilliant, thanks so much Ian. I really enjoyed the original video on the Estelle. Please revisit a Rapid soon when you get chance :).

Thanks for making this video - my late dad had one of these cars many years ago in a light blue! It was such good fun even when everyone took the piss out of it! Seeing this video made me remember my dad and good memories in the Estelle

As a Skoda Enthusiast and Skoda Owner this car pleases me much, what a great little sleeper that Mick has made this lives up to the owners club forum Briskoda very nicely.

This is a brilliant swap! Great work Mick I see a Phillips 361 FM Cassette Radio !! I've got the exact same one in my Renault 5 :) I've just upgraded it to have built in Bluetooth without replacing the cassette or radio functionality, while being able to play the Bluetooth music trough the original amp for it, so you can still use all the same dials for volume, tone, balance control. And it stays looking original too :) much better than a cheapo halfords red LED Bluetooth headunit I guess, if you're reading this Mick, and would like your headunit upgraded with bluetooth, lemme know! :)

Love the noise and love the way the power enhancements are so well disguised. A proper sleeper. It's amazing how light the steering is in a rear wheel drive, rear engined car.

Back in the day when I owned many of these cheap gems, I would remove the front springs, grind the top loops off and place them back. It lowered the front end just nicely and handled marginly better. That engine in the skoda sounds awesome. Good effort by the owner.

Sleepers are just brilliant. I love this, such a clean build.

Excellent! I love the quality of the fit and how subtle the mods are.

My Estelle was G616 UNA, the same colour as this one. My ex-wife referred to the colour as 'mixed wash', indeed, put a sponge on it, and a little bit of the paint rubbed off. It did 0-60 in about 3 days, and it had a stopping distance only exceeded by the most recent generation of ultra-large container ships. I loved it. I bought it from the Station Garage in Mossley, now sadly closed. I did the deal with Melanie Sykes's Uncle Rodney, the kind of guy who gave used car dealers a good name. Lovely bloke, played cornet in our local brass band, passed away last year.

Lol I know Mick who owns this car and done it all himself. It’s an awesome job and well done to him. Great review Ian

That is a fantastic car. I've owned a few Estelles, they're tremendous fun. And for once, I recognised almost all the roads you were on, as I'm often driving along them in some farm vehicle or other. The giveaway was the level crossing you went over near the start of video. Another great video!

a project car that incorporates an engine swap will NEVER end. the journey does the trick for some. amazing build and a very happy car. thanks for the content Ian

Fantastic little thing! Would be so much fun over hear in our Canadian winter rallies.

I loved my metro K series 1.1, it was a great little engine and gearbox, very rapid off the line to 30, buggered after that, but did run up to 112mph on the A2 to Dartford I would have loved to try that little Estelle with the extra grunt.

You have a Ford nicknamed Betty, and here's a Skoda named Estelle... now you just need to review cars called Rue and Bea to complete the Golden Girls! (Maybe the Citroën Bea-X is close enough to count...)

This is great! Love it! Looking at the quality of the workmanship I think we are in for a treat with a fully upgraded factory look sleeper.

Love the old Skoda's , and what an excellent conversion this one has .. Full credit to the owner . Top man & an excellent test drive from Mr hubnut 🙂👍.

Now that is one of the best sleepers I've seen in a very long time! The colour adds to the Skoda-ish expectation one has of it, but it definitely does not disappoint where smiles are concerned! The K-series engine you say? Wow! BL / Rover did well with that then didn't they? It's such a happy little sound too. Reminds me a little of the sound of the Fiat 124 Coupe / 132 Supermirafiori - the latter of which I didn't expect to go half as well as it did when I took it for a test drive. One thing that the Skoda rally drivers did back in the day was drop a large concrete paving slab in the front boot. That helped keep the weight over the nose (and the car out of the ditch) during the downhill sections and improved the steering / braking as a result. If the owner is going to drop bigger brakes in up front, they might like to look at lowering it a little further to get the nose down level with the rear. This should take care of the squirrely steering at motorway speeds (or greater) where the lack of downforce will lift the nose further and will also add to its chuckability in the corners. After that, if it were my own vehicle, I would leave it alone and use it as my daily....and always take the long way home. He's done a VERY neat job and it's so impressive just as it sits! I love it. All the best.

A great vid, thanks for this! I had two of these in the early 90s (you could buy a decent four year old example with fsh and under 30k miles for under £1000 then). I notched up about 30K miles a year in them driving around the UK and Europe for work. They were a solidly reliable but quirky little car, cheap to service, good on wet, muddy and icy roads but didn't like crosswinds. I love the engine in your test car here - The original 1.2 was a plodder, but a bit underpowered, though would do 70mph all day - though I remember well the long climb of the autobahn east of Karlsruhe in Germany and it was hard to get it go much faster than 45mph there loaded up - so you were stuck in the truck lane. For sure, I still miss those 120Ls I had. I wish I'd kept one.

I live in Lincolnshire. I’d love to meet Ken. I’ve a special place in my heart for this year of Estelle.

That's flipping amazing! What a quality build! I thought it sounded a bit like a beetle as well

Love it! Install an engine with nearly 3x the power and just drive it on stock gearbox, brakes and suspension! Looks like it can handle it all pretty well though.

Great for making yobs in their fiesta st and similar cry when it outdrags them off the lights. Love it!

I call it the Skover. I think i've seen it at a show when it had it's original engine and talked to the owner about it's cooling system. He said neglecting it caused Estelle's to overheat.

Very well executed. Enjoyed that 😎

Love that! I now own a car Mick rebuilt in 2020 and he went to great lengths to keep that completely original, right down to the hubcaps!!

This is genius. I do admire the creativity and often the complete madness of those who create such wonderful sleepers. This is really great, the fact I adore the shape and styling of these Skoda's does help. Great video, and if you find more of these sleepers on your journey, please test them and film. Thank you.

Great sleeper. Bet it's raised a few eyebrows at various traffic light grand Prix😂. Do love a K series.

Oh Ian, I love this! Seeing you belt it round the bends is a joy, the laugh and smile says it all! I'd love to have a car like this, absolutely brilliant 'British garagista' at its finest! I wonder what the VVC engine would feel like in this? Can Mick built me something similar?!

My sort of car, proper little street sleeper, great work and a tidy install.

I like this a lot!! Love the fact its still relatively stock too, guess it shows that they were clearly quite well built as standard too for the steering/gearbox to still cope well enough with probably getting on for 3 times the power they were intended for.

I also worked for skoda, I started in August 1992 it when when the 1st fuel injection models came out .I also owned a 1985 120LSE estelle. What a car .I lowered it put 14 after market beetle wheels on it ,big front spot lights ,a rear reverse spot lamp ,I fitted a cb radio with a big ariel on the boot lid .we gas flowed the heat ,fitted a Kent cam a tubular inlet and exhaust manifold, a weber carburettor a sports exhaust and electronic ignition..after that it would push mk2 fiesta xr2s up the road .it was a hoot to drive .I loved my skodas and still have a 2018 citygo and a 2018 superb 2.0 190 tdi estate. Brilliant cars.

Ian the look on your face when you accelerated away said it all. You didn’t need to say anything your expression told us everything. Absolutely superb mate😂🙂👍🏻

When I was driving and in my aircooled vw era, my friend had one the coupes of these new, and after some tuning and mods I quite liked them tbh.Felt fairly solid Compared to old vw and yugo and lada competition. and was fun.almost like (dare I say) a cheap old 356/911,oh and edit to add , living in the Peak District,the rally heritage made a difference! 😀

I am from Slovakia, we grew up with these cars. I saw various engine swaps and interestingly - all of them sound like a "beefed up" original engine. That typical "engine note" of Škoda 105/120 must be created by resonance and vibration of body itself... Afterall, engine in this car is more-or-less stiffly mounted to body, given the construction of rear axle.

My 2 estelles a 105 and a 120 did well over a 100000 miles reliable ones too.. fantastic fun in the snow.

"Mick did say give it the beans" 🤣 brilliant ! What a fun car 👍

Surprisingly Skoda’. That was the banner on the window of my parents Skoda dealership back in the 80’s. Fantastic cars 👍

A Skoda with Attitude. Sweet. Love it. Great video 😁😊🐢

Thats just bonkers. Bloody love it !!

That looked like great fun! The kind of conversion which looks like, from the outside, "I'm just a humble li'l ol' (fill in blank)", and then the driver gets this fiendish grin, and "feeds 'er the onions"!

Mr HubNut goes wild in the country in a beautiful car to. Always prefered these when the favorit first came out, I always think never buy a new when it first comes out, wait till it has a refresh and they've sorted any problems it might of had.

Its amazing how small and neat a modern engine is in that bay. Yes I'd bet the K is lighter, quite a lot lighter, its one of the lightest 4 cyl car engines made at the time.

Here after the GTA video. Thanks Ian!! Like this one

The front lowering was definitely a good idea. Old Škoda cars were very prone to start to lift off at around 160km/h since there is nothing up front and there's an engine behind the rear axle.

Thats a real nice conversion, good fun. A quick brake upgrade for safety and it's complete.

What a fantastic video. Everything you would want in a Hubnut video. Thanks

K-series conversion - brilliant! - used to work on these Skodas - Fuels testing, valve seat recession testing!

reminds me of a Pinto with a V-8 dropped in it. Was either a 260 or a 289 and used Mustang II parts to fit it.

Impressive, excellent! Strange person that I am I always loved the pre favorit skodas and pre samara ladas...

Stunning I absolutely love estelle's I was so happy and excited to see the dplate one at fotu my friends mom had a white s reg one years ago and it never ever let her down

Great build Mick. Love it 👍🏻

I learnt to drive in one of those, if it had that motor I would not have lived past 20..... The 4 pot front brakes on some were homologation parts for the GroupB rally version from memory.

Great video, Ian. Kudos to Mick for creating such a wonderful Q Ship. I've always been a big fan of cars that surprise.

Puts a smile on your face

What a super engined Skoda.

This is what it's all about, you're on top form Ian.

I saw the name Special K and thought for one second that he'd put a K20 in there, that would've been real overkill!

When I was working for Tim bishop on the TAZ project, the Slovak ex-Skoda designed van, we were tuning a stroked version of the same engine. It was creatively fuel-injected to match the Euro regs of the time, and had been opened out to 1500cc by the factory. Leaving aside the engine, beyond the fact we could get over 100mph out of this archaic design, it also used a similarly designed, but in-line, gearbox. The innards were the same, even if the casing was not. Our experience, on a trip to the factory in Slovakia (from Fosters Booth in Northamptonshire) was that we gradually lost every gear as the journey progressed. The engine was so much more powerful that we kept snapping teeth off the gears. Just as we pulled up outside the factory gates, the last working gear, 5th, failed with the box locking up solid in the process. From this, you might guess that your Skoda owner might need to store up a few spare gearboxes, or use a VW Transporter van box (or something) to counter this weakness.

Now that's a budget Porsche for you! Love it!

Brakes are quite good on these Skoda models. I think they are Brembo or Brembo copies and doing their job also with Moore HP. The lights are also good, but the suspension must be too jumpy as the steering is very light with the engine in the back. And finally, the engines were always too weak, so now we have the solution!

I was counting, I reckon about the mid 7 seconds

What a great car,, back in the ninety's I can remember a Skoda with a rotary in it ,with a vw beetle gear box. It was the same color to..

A hooligan Skoda! Gotta love it Ian!

This might well be the coolest car ever !! I love the clever engineering

One of these left my mate standing going over the moors in northwales in his Westfield

Omg!!! Wow what an interesting engine transplant into an ordinary Skoda Estelle. I certainly now has extra UMPH coming from the rear end. I certainly look forward to seeing the car when it has had the remaining alterations done. What an absolute Blast of fun from the Skoda.

Great to see you genuinely enjoy the drive