The Thing Is Laughable
by Ross Finlay (01 Jul 04)

When you look at the general design, build quality, passenger space and price list for the new Octavia, you have to laugh. But not at Skoda. While the current range may be competitively placed in the market, the new cars - even if a little more expensive - are improved to the point where they'll be very hard for any direct rival make to upstage.

Recognisably Octavia in front-end appearance, although noticeably more stylish in its exterior design than its predecessor - of which several carry-over models will stay on sale till next year - the new car, introduced in five-door hatchback form only, is longer, wider and higher-built, and has more luggage volume. In this as in other ways it benefits from being built on the Mark V Golf platform.

Ouch! There goes that Skoda schoolteacher rapping me across the knuckles with a ruler. Okay, okay. As they say very firmly in Mlada Boleslav, the new Octavia is actually one of several models which share the Volkswagen Group's A5 platform, a rather different way of looking at the matter.

The most noticeable thing about the cabin is the rear seat legroom. When the current Octavia was launched, a certain lack of that was one of the few grouches, and after quite a short time Skoda produced more of it thanks to a seating redesign.

There will be no need of that with the new car. Space in the rear cabin is lavish - more so than in the Golf - and even with the driving seat quite well reclined it passed the finger-span test: fingers fully stretched, I couldn't touch the back of the front seat and the front of the back seat at the same time.

As with other models in the company catalogue, there are no complaints about the fit and finish of the interior, and it's all well planned and laid out, but somehow isn't as stylish as I feel Skoda could have made it. The car was designed and engineered in the Czech Republic, and that's where it will be built, but I have a perhaps unfair vision of some Group functionary reining in the Skoda studio people.

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