Škoda, is a Czech automobile manufacturer established in 1925 as the successor to Laurin & Klement and headquartered in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Škoda Works became state owned in 1948. After 1991, it was gradually privatized to the German Volkswagen Group, becoming a partial subsidiary in 1994 and a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000.[ The Škoda Works were established as an arms manufacturer in 1859. ŠKODA AUTO (and its predecessor Laurin & Klement) is the fifth-oldest company producing cars, and has an unbroken history alongside Daimler, Opel, Peugeot, and Tatra. As with many long-established car manufacturers, the company which would become Škoda Auto started in the early 1890s by manufacturing bicycles.[10] Škoda (then Laurin & Klement) factories were founded in 1896 as a velocipede manufacturer.