Last month I had the opportunity of driving from Prague to Poland in Skoda’s brand new Superb. Usually on a car-testing journey like this it’s just me and one other journalist in the car. This time I put the Superb’s space reputation to the test by bringing four fully-grown adults with me.
I’m not overly familiar with either Prague or Poland. I’ve been to both places before, but I can’t recall ever having driven the roads there. So, like any other foreign destination I’ve driven in, there was a bit of panic getting out of Prague airport. I took a few mandatory wrong turns, but eventually the SATNAV set us straight. Our destination was a place called Jelenia Góra in Poland, a seriously beautiful part of the world steeped in history. The architecture of the ruins and restorations are incredible, and the fact that the weather held out for most of the three-day visit was a real plus.
Space
Like the new Superb Combi, which is due to hit our shores next week, space in the Superb is incredible. It’s a class topper and I would challenge anyone to find a more spacious competitor in its segment. The headroom to the rear is 980mm and the boot offers 625litres – which means there’s enough room for five suitcases and more. The boot space offers a lot more than its competitors in the Avensis, Mondeo and even the Passat.
Legroom to the rear and to the front is vast - this shouldn’t surprise anyone because the car itself is just 139mm shy of being five metres long. The only real downside in here is the tunnel behind the centre console, which means that the floor of the back seat isn’t completely flat, and whoever sits in the middle has to put their feet either side of it. With that said, none of my passengers complained.
The space is well used within the vehicle and there is a lot of focus on comfort. The car I was driving was the L&K Superb. L&K stands for Lauren and Klement – the people who founded Skoda. The manufacturers only give this badge to their top-spec vehicles. The only thing missing was more USB ports – there are only two.
Skoda’s tagline is “Simply Clever” and in total there are 31 items that the manufacturer claims as being “Simply Clever” – to be fair, some of them are useful and… simple. For example, the thing that endeared me most was the plastic with Velcro in the boot that holds your bags in place – when was the last time that you went shopping and put one full shopping bag into an empty boot space? What was the result when you got home? Had the shopping fallen all over the boot? Well, the bit of plastic effectively holds your bag in place, which means your shopping is where you left it when you get home.
Other “Simply Clever” items include, umbrellas fitted into both front doors, a virtual pedal under the car that allows you to open the boot with your foot if your hands are full, an automatic shut off if you try to stick the wrong fuel in your vehicle, and a retractable tow bar that can be folded away to the rear.
Drive
Like when you’re going from Monaghan to Tyrone, or Fermanagh to Donegal, there was no physical checkpoint between Czech and Poland on the route we took. The roads around this region are windy and full of various speed limits. Think “Ring of Kerry” and you’ll know what I mean. They are visually stunning, but one needs to be very careful driving on them. The Superb is a big machine and unsurprisingly if you take a bend a bit over-keenly you will meet some body roll - the moral here is, don't drive like a lunatic and you won't know the body roll exists.
When I was at the launch of the Superb Combi in Bavaria I thought that the 2.0TDI model with 150PS was a bit sluggish going up the Alpine hills. I was wrong then and I know why. I was changing gears when the car’s trip computer told me I should, and I reckon it was telling me to change too early every time. So I ignored the trip computer and went with my heart on the gear changes – no sluggishness.
Laurin & Klement models are fitted with special adaptive dampers as standard, as well as 18-inch alloys – these are here for extra comfort. How firm these dampers are is up to the driver and you can choose which mode you would like to drive in: normal, comfort and sport. I drove the manual version of the car, but if you’d like to have a more relaxed drive there is a DSG gearbox available.
I even managed to check out the 4x4 abilities of the car. I'll put it this way, I'm glad the road wasn't too off-road. The 4x4 is good, but if you’re looking at one of these and you think you can Range-Rover this around any terrain you want, well I wish you luck. I literally brought it over some slightly hilly and mucky off-roads and while it dealt with it in a fair manner, I'm glad there wasn't much to challenge the ground clearance.
Appearance
The Superb is a brand new car, and last month when I was in Poland there were very few to be seen in the country. For this reason many heads turned as I drove passed them.
On the second day of the journey I was directed to an old rail road to take some photos. I brought one passenger with me and I got some nice snaps on the road. The photo below was the most interesting part of my shoot. It's not that the photo is overly interesting, because it's not. It's the fact that this car actually stopped traffic.
As I was taking this photo an old Mercedes coupe with two young fellas came to a near standstill on the road as they were going passed. They stopped a string of traffic behind them on what is an isolated-enough road. Next thing we know the guys pull in behind where I’m parked and block our car from moving. The two young fellas get out of the car and start talking to me in Polish about the vehicle. I didn't have a clue what they were saying, until I heard one of them say, "Nova Skoda Superb" with a big smile on his face, "3.0 litre?"
I replied, “nope, 2.0 TDI with 150PS”. They wanted to know all about it, but because of a very distinct language barrier, there was little I could offer them apart from showing them the clever torch in the back, the ice-scraper by the fuel tank door, and the way that you can stick your foot under the boot and it opens automatically. You see my polish only stretches as far as dziÄ™kujÄ™ (pronounced Jen-Koo-Ya – I think), and giving them a breakdown as to how the car drives was completely beyond me.
At one point on the way back to Prague I noticed in my rear-view mirror a car speeding up towards me on the motorway. The driver slowed down just as he was beside me, he looked me in the eye, pointed at the car, gave me a thumbs up, and sped away – now this may have happened on the Czech side of the border, which is the home of Skoda.
Price
Skoda has had a strange reputation over the years. Some people might even still associate it with cars like the LADA Riva. Over the last ten years it has been getting better and better. A lot of the Skoda range is now being built using Volkswagen’s MQB platform and it’s brimming with Volkswagen parts. In fact, if I was working for Volkswagen I’d be worried that these guys might actually start turning over higher sales. I mean the Superb is in direct competition with the Passat, and while I liked the Passat – I think I’d choose the Superb over it.
What might surprise some people is that the Superb isn’t the least expensive car in its segment. It’s on par in terms of price with much of the competition, but you get a lot as standard in the Superb.
Prices start from €26,795 for the 1.4 TSI offering 125bhp. The model I drove was a 2.0 TDI L&K offering 150bhp with 4x4, this will set you back as much as €42,945 (the same engine with “Ambition” trim will cost you from €35,395, whereas without 4x4 it would cost €32,195).
There are three other trims apart from the L&K - “Active”, “Ambition” and “Style”. A 1.6 TDI offering 120bhp with “Active” trim starts from €27,795 and costs €190 per annum to tax. At the other end of the spectrum is a 2.0 TDI offering 190bhp with DSG and 4x4 and the L& version of this will set you back €47,345.
Summation
The Superb is receiving great reviews, and there’s a reason for this. The only real negatives I see with the machine relate to when the car tells you to change gear – as I’ve explained above you should go with your heart while going through the gears.
I shouldn’t complain about the space – now I’m just being greedy but… what would make that space even better would be if Skoda found a way to get rid of the tunnel on the floor behind the centre armrest.
The mirror link system works very well in the Superb and the Canton surround sound stereo was music to my ears. All-in, the Superb is one to consider if you do a lot of miles.
I've been asked the question now on at least 3 different occasions, will the manufacturer ever get round to making a seven seat Combi version? I doubt it, but it would be nice to see if they could make that simply clever.
