PRODUCTION of the Skoda Fabia hit a landmark figure recently as the 600,000th Fabia rolled off the production line.

The jubilee car was a silver 1.4 MPI Fabia Estate in comfort trim, which delivers 68bhp and was ordered by a customer in the Czech Republic.

The Fabia was launched at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt in 1999 to much acclaim. The estate version appeared a year later at the Paris Motor Show and the saloon version at the Geneva International Motor Show in 2001.

Out of the 600,000 Fabias produced so far, there have been 400,574 hatchbacks, 43,097 saloons and 156,329 estate versions. Skoda's popular supermini has achieved excellent sales results and a raft of awards throughout Europe.

The Fabia has won What Car? best supermini award for three consecutive years and been named car of the year by various publications in Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ukraine and other countries.