LexFather

http://www.themotorreport.com....eview/



2009 Skoda Octavia RS First Drive Review

ALLOWING MOTORING SCRIBES to mercilessly flog your new model for more than three hours at a track is a display of serious confidence in your product.

To launch the new look Octavia RS, Skoda Australia assembled the motoring press at Top Gear Australia’s test track at Camden Airport and let us loose.

There were no real rules, we weren’t asked to take it easy, or “only do a few laps”; it was more a case of “please ring the Octavia’s neck and let us know how you get on”.

So we did, and the Octavia RSs took what we dished out lap after lap, never faltering.

The new Octavia RS has proven that it can handle a beating, but is it really any different to the old Octavia RS?

Let’s take a look at what has changed.

Lil4X

Škoda, is that YOU? Is this the same Škoda that I remember from my rallying days? Back in the '60's these machines were variously known as "Iron Curtain Leakage" or "Czecher Cabs". They were about as crude as an anvil, although they shared a good deal of that image's reliability, and they fell somewhere on the weird scale somewhere between a Saab and a Trabant. They weren't very sophisticated or pretty, being built around a pre-war model and styled, if you could call it that, as somebody's reinterpretation of a 1949 DeSoto.

As a rally car they were slow, but reliable; but you could drive the thing into a wall, back up, and get back in the chase. The engine was small, agricultural, and inadequate, particularly in the company of pedigreed European marques. Forget parts, you either stocked your own spares or made friends with a local blacksmith - a perfectly acceptable alternative, considering the technology involved in the vehicle.

From the review, it appears that Škoda has come a long way. Now if they can establish a reliable dealer network, they might even be able to compete in the US market. I'd like to see that. Seeing this Škoda is sort of like running into a girl you knew in high school many years ago. At the time she was rather dumpy and dressed like she'd been fitted out by her grandmother. In the decades since, she's cleaned up, hit the gym, picked up a designer outfit or two, spent a couple of years at Stevens, and is sporting a new, fun, and confident personality. We wish her the very best, and secretly wonder how we missed all of her good points back then.

Blackraven

Indeed, with stuff like that, it really like Skoda is a brand not to be underestimated with indeed.

I hope VAG would release this in more countries (outside of E.U. and others).