The mystery of the Skover pickup

FORGET Nessie or the Beast of Bodmin Moor. Stranger things have happened, as one Life On Cars reader has found out!

Jamie Frew sent in this picture of the strange cross-breed he spotted in a dark supermarket car park somewhere near Glasgow, which appears to splice the genes of the Rover 200 I bought earlier this month with the early Nineties efforts of a certain Czech car maker. It's the Skover Felicia... I think.

I love the idea that a cash-strapped Rover Group would have gone knocking on Skoda's door with a cheque for the Czechs, in return for a tarted-up pickup truck which could have been sold alongside Metros and MGFs. It is badge engineering at its cheapest, simplest level.

Oh alright, I'll come clean; it's a Skoda Felicia Pickup, which someone thought they could improve by removing all the original badging and replacing with Rover wheels and radiator grille. The idea, I take it, was to take away the outdated connotations of cheapness which used to come with Skoda, and replace it with Roverised visions of restraint and refinement.

I'm not entirely sure it's worked...