Skoda offered small businesses several variants of the Favorita or Forman , starting with the classic Pick-up and ending with the Forman Plus. Quite possibly the most interesting commercial Forman, however, was created, at the request of a Syrian customer and with the consecration of the Mladá Boleslav car company, under the banner MTX .
The model named MTX Pick-up DC was born in November 1993 by engineer Solfronk, who was just starting out at the time. Within six weeks, he was able to rework the standard Forman into practically a pickup truck with four doors and five seats (hence the abbreviation DC, i.e. double cab). In order to create a loading area, the rear part of the station wagon's roof was cut off and the resulting edges were then smoothed or glued. In order to access the really modest bed area, with an additional laminate floor , a hinged opening was cut, partially extending into the rear bumper. A laminate bulkhead was installed between the luggage compartment and the cargo, which included the rear window, carefully removed before the roof was cut . The entire operation took place without the need for welding, all new parts were connected with glue.
In February 1994, MTX began production of a 3815 mm long , 1620 mm wide and 1425 mm high pickup with a curb weight of 920 kg. The technology, including McPherson struts at the front and longitudinal suspensions with a torsion bar at the rear, remained unchanged. The front wheels were driven via a five-speed manual transmission by a 13-cylinder petrol engine with a Jikov carburettor with an output of 58 hp at 5,000 rpm and a torque of 94 Nm at 3,000 rpm.
Although cars imported into Syria were burdened with many obstacles at the time, including an 80 percent tariff, and the monopoly on commercial vehicles was held by Japan's Toyota, 1,400 DC Pick-ups were produced by June 1994, with a maximum monthly production volume of 450 units. To this day, this car is number one among all Metalex models, later MTX. The excellent sales are largely due to various exemptions from the customs law (in the case of the domestic model, it applied to the volume of the cargo space), which Metalex managed to use. At the same time, the Czech traders covered the market with their products so quickly that Toyota could not react. During the shipment of the last batch , the Syrian authorities did change the parameters of the category into which the MTX pickup fell, but this happened only at a time when the prepared number of cars was already on its way to Syria.
It is certainly not without interest that the Syrians converted many of the produced pieces into a sedan after some time, the use of which was ultimately more variable thanks to the closed loading area. However, this conversion has nothing to do with several prototypes of the Favorit Sedan , which were produced directly by Skoda.
Source: MTX, auta 5p.eu, Metalex: Czech manufacturer of sports cars and motorcycles, author: Marcel Gause
