A Big Thumbs Up
by Mike Grundon (17 Jan 06)

One of my earliest motoring memories is of driving a 25-year old Land Rover along a Cornish coast road being held up by the ironically named Skoda Rapide. It was orange and being driven by an old man in a funny hat. Good how Skodas have changed, innit?

At the wheel of this bright red Octavia vRS, such comic tales can be consigned to distant memory with a nostalgic smile. Here's a 200bhp fastback, capable of sprinting to 62mph in 7.3 seconds then on up to a top speed within a gnat's of 150mph. It's the most powerful production Skoda ever built, it's based on the mechanicals of the saintly Volkswagen Golf GTi - and it shifts.

Three degrees of frost in an early morning mist had sugared the trees and shrubs lining the valley bottom. The moon, yet to set, hung pale in the pastel sky over the 9th Century Catalan Romanesque castle about 50 miles inland from Barcelona. The road was dry and it snaked, rose and fell around the contours of the hillside, weaving through the countryside most invitingly.

The vRS was the perfect car to explore the area, and the area was the perfect place to explore the car. There was the visibility to pursue safe racing lines through the corners, there were point-and-shoot hill-climbs that called for quick gear-changes and tight turning. These led onto long open runs as the hills gave way to plains, and ultimately there were motorways for steady away cruising into the city.

And do you know what? Several hundred miles of everything from main-street to mountain failed to throw up anything to complain about.

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