MOTORING Attention, please
Skoda’s new Octavia estate is so elegantly understated you might just miss it. And more’s the pity
WORDS NEIL LYNDON
climbed into the new Skoda Octavia estate 4x4 when I was picking them up from school. ‘But when you are inside, it seems quite modern.’ Truer words may not have been spoken. No
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car currently on sale combines such an array of excellent qualities with so little outward show or demonstrativeness. Despite some recent unconvincing attempts
to make itself look trendy – least persuasively with the curiously pointless Rapid Spaceback – Skoda’s forte over the last twenty-odd years (since it was taken over by the VW group, in fact) has been to produce superbly made, reliable cars at an attractive price that draw no attention to themselves or their owners. For many years, Skodas have routinely fi nished in top ten slots in impartial surveys of reliability and customer satisfaction, proving that they’re decidedly not for people who buy a car in order to make a statement about themselves. They are for people who are perfectly capable of speaking in their own voices, but might prefer their car to know its unostentatious place. The new Octavia 4x4 estate upholds this fi ne
tradition. Only the most dedicated follower of automotive fashion might see much difference between this new car and the one that preceded it. Like the hatchback version of the Octavia, the estate has some sharp little creases across the panelling beside the number plate and some slightly edgier lines to its profi le but, otherwise, the classic estate outline of this Octavia makes
his looks like an old-fashioned car from the outside,’ observed our 11- year-old daughter’s best friend as she
it almost indistinguishable from a host of mass- produced family cars. Inside, functional, restrained modernity
‘The cavernous load space stretches from Inverness to Wick when the rear seats are folded down’
reigns. There’s nothing fl ippant or frivolous about the instrument panel or the layout of the controls for satnav and audio systems; but a silver trim around the gear lever and door handles and a dash of gloss-black fi nish around the information screen are clearly intended to shine some light into the austere Czech soul of the Octavia. Like the hatchback version (whose overall
Below: Nothing about its looks suggests the Octavia is the kind of car that regularly wins awards for customer satisfaction.
length it exactly shares), the Octavia estate draws upon the foundations of the latest Mk VII Volkswagen Golf. For my money, the Octavia has a strong claim to be the best of all the many derivatives that the VW group is producing on the back of that excellent product (which was voted Scottish Car of the Year 2013). The estate version of the Octavia is even better than the hatchback (chiefl y because it has a cavernous load space that stretches from Inverness to Wick when the rear seats are folded down, trebling the 633-litre capacity). And the four-wheel- drive version is even better not just because, with winter tyres, it’s likely to surmount all but the most Arctic conditions of a Scottish winter; but also because the four-wheel-drive set-up makes it ride and handle better. A tendency to get unsettled when being pushed hard through corners is common to all the front-wheel-drive cars in the Octavia range. The four-wheel-drive estate smooths away that jitteriness, allowing quick and velvety progress on country roads. With a six-speed manual gearbox, the 105bhp
engine in the 1.6-litre TDI version I borrowed is not exactly a ball of fi re (with a maximum speed of 117mph and 0-62mph in 11.7 seconds) but it proved capable of clocking up a reliable average of more than 44mpg (as against the manu facturer’s ludicrous claims of 60mpg). No snow fell during the week it was with me but I know enough about Skoda’s four-wheel-drive system to be confi dent it could have coped with anything but deep drifts. If you want more off-road capability, a Scout
version – with raised suspension and reinforced undersides – will soon be available. But that will set you back a lot more than the £21,715 all-in price for the excellent and endearing car I borrowed.
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