- The Skoda L&K 130 pickup is a custom Superb, created as a support vehicle for cycle racing.
- Based on the Combi variant, the one-off boasts a redesigned tail and a sliding rear door.
- This 10th student-designed concept from the Skoda Academy sports a PHEV powertrain.
The Skoda Superb Combi is already a spacious wagon, but what if you’re craving the kind of utility offered by a pickup, say, something like the Subaru Baja? Well, students at the Skoda Academy have you covered. They took the brand’s range-topping model and transformed it into a one-off pickup, jam-packed with custom features designed to meet the needs of bike racers.
If you haven’t figured it out already, the L&K 130 is designed as a support vehicle for bicycle races. It is named after the company’s founders Laurin and Klement, who started building bicycles 130 years ago, before moving on to motorbikes and cars. Skoda is no stranger to cycle racing, being a long-time supporter of events like the Tour de France.
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The highlight of the one-off build is the redesigned tail. The rear bed is rather compact, but the cargo area expands at the touch of a button with the help of a sliding tailgate. This allows quick access to a pair of racing bicycles which are mounted on two racks. If the need arises, an extra roof rack can hold a third bike.
In order to make room for the loading compartment, the students cut out the rear upper section of the bodywork, added a new rear window, and tweaked the pillars. They also created a unique mechanism for the rear door on the passenger side, which now features two door handles and slides backwards.
On the outside, the L&K 130 features 19-inch Supernova alloy wheels, a backlit grille, and Laurin & Klement logos, all wrapped in a bold livery of gold, red, black, and white.
Inside, the theme continues with matching upholstery and “130 years” embroidered on the seats. There’s no shortage of clever storage solutions either, including a roof net for smaller items and a large cool box for keeping water bottles cold during long races. Two additional screens on the dashboard and back of the seats provide real-time race data, while a radio ensures the team can stay in touch.
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Under the hood lies the stock plug-in hybrid powertrain of the Superb Combi iV. A turbocharged 1.5-liter engine and a single electric motor produce a combined 201 hp (150 kW / 204 PS). The 25.7 kWh battery pack allows an EV-only range of over 100 km (62 miles) in the standard version, although the extra weight and worse aerodynamics of the one-off pickup likely reduce that number a bit.
Overall, the team invested over 2,000 working hours in planning, development, and production of the concept. The one-off will be showcased at the 112th edition of the Tour de France that will take place between 5-27 July.
The L&K 130 is the tenth student-designed concept from the Skoda Academy following the Citijet (2014), Funstar (2015), Atero (2016), Element (2017), Sunroq (2018), Mountiaq (2019), Slavia (2020), Afriq (2022), and Roadiaq (2023). Notably, the company skipped the concept car reveals in 2021 due to the pandemic and again in 2024 to remodel its workshops.
