Skoda Superb
£16,710
Miles per gallon: 55.4
CO2 per km: 136 grams
Good for: the last laugh
Bad for: old jokes
Despite the huge strides we have taken over the past decades to eradicate prejudice, some stereotypes have been harder to debunk than others. One of the more intransigent among these is "Skodism" - the belief that all Skodas are crap. Here's a good example of Skodist thinking. Last week a friend asked me for some car advice. She wanted something "reliable, good value and not as embarrassing as my knackered old Nissan Micra". "Easy," I replied. "Treat yourself to a Skoda." She laughed heartily, and then said, "No, but seriously..." A nasty case of Skodism.
The latest car to roll on to our streets from the all-conquering manufacturer (it's won 38 awards since 2002) is the Superb - the most luxurious vehicle that Skoda has ever built. It's actually the third time that Skoda - clearly not a manufacturer to cloak its achievements in a veil of false modesty - has named a model "Superb". The first was in 1934, a time when fuel prices were soaring and the Czech domestic market was in crisis. Perhaps if Skoda plans to launch a Superb for the fourth time, it would be good enough to let the chancellor know first...
The second Superb incarnation appeared in 2001 and went on to sell 130,000 models worldwide. When it arrived on forecourts across the nation, the notion of the words "posh" and "Skoda" appearing in the same joke let alone the same PR puff would have been hilarious. But today a high-end motor at low-end prices is the least we expect from Skoda - and the Superb is proof you don't always get what you pay for. You sometimes get more.
Having said that, the Superb is no looker. Being kind, you might say it would appeal to the less flamboyant of motorists; being honest, you'd say it was as dull as watching Big Brother Live at 3am. From certain angles it has a bit of the Audi A4 about it; from others you might mistake it for a Passat's more reserved sister. But who cares? VW, which owns Skoda, expects 80% of its Superb customers to be from the fleet market and only 20% to be retail buyers, so it has deliberately created a product that is as innocuous as possible. And they've certainly succeeded.
However, that's not to say that there is anything bland about the interior. The first thing you notice is the extraordinary leg room in the back. Basketball players could stretch out there. The first casualty of a big back seat is usually the boot, yet without producing a strangely elongated car, Skoda has managed to ensure the boot is also enormous. It's as if an illusionist has been messing with the interior dimensions. And the tricks continue: the car features the world's first "twin door" boot - it opens as both a saloon and a hatch.
It's also the first car in the VW group with adaptive lighting - so the spread and angle of the beam changes according to speed. Then there's Park Assist, a feature that takes the bumper-shunting and kerb-grinding fun out of parallel parking. A great gimmick, but perhaps a sad indicator of the decline in driving skills. Either way, the Superb is certain to stamp out any final vestiges of Skodism.
