SEAT needs to find its signature dish

WHEN Withnail and I paid a visit to Penrith they demanded the finest wines known to humanity. When my companion and I ended up there, on a soaked excuse for an evening last week, we ended up staring at the menu outside a Spanish restaurant.

I mention this because – even with every other restaurant in town shut for the night – we still preferred to pop to the nearest chip shop instead because we just didn’t fancy Spanish cuisine. There’s nothing wrong with Spanish cuisine, of course – we just decided we’d rather dine on something slightly more familiar.

It’s exactly the same, I reckon with Spanish cars – by which, of course, I mean SEAT. So far this year, I’ve tried both the new Leon and the hatchback it replaced, and both ticked all the buttons in a nourishing, one-of-your-five-a-day sort of way. Both were effortless when they were on the motorway, entertaining when they weren’t and built with the sort of attention to detail that’d give a chess champion a headache.

Great cars, then, but I can’t think of a single reason why you’d buy one.

SEATs are supposed to be the sportier Spanish cousins of VWs but they aren’t – they are, especially if you look at the Mii and the Alhambra, VW models with a slight nip ‘n’ tuck and a different badge. If I want a VW with a sense of mischief, I’ll get a Golf GTI.

"But SEATs are usefully cheaper than VWs, aren’t they?" I hear you cry. Again, SEAT’s usurped on this one by Skoda, who not only make their cars cheaper than VW’s but more interesting and engaging too. The Yeti, in particular, fills a niche nobody else at Europe’s biggest car maker does by being the perfect car for anyone who owns a Labrador, while the Superb caters perfectly for anyone looking for a car with an overly confident name. They might as well have called it the Skoda Awesome or even the Skoda Screw You, It’s Better Than Your Car, Mate.

SEAT, on the other hand, produces a range of cars that are just as good as anything VW, Skoda and Audi can come up with but there’s no signature dish to woo you with its exotic aromas. There’s no impossibly powerful Leon Cupra R any more, or a small sports car to fill the gap the Fiat Barchetta and the MGF left. Reheating what was admittedly a great dish – the old Audi A4 – in the microwave is not going to get my tastebuds going.

For now, my vote’s still with fish and chips. The Ford Focus, in other words.

Škoda's go-faster Octavia ready for August launch

PRICES for a family-friendly slingshot from Škoda will start at just under £23,000 when it goes on sale next month.

The company’s performance twist on the latest Octavia, the RS, is available with either a 220bhp petrol engine or a 184bhp turbodiesel, which is packed into either the sleek hatchback or the load-lugging estate.

Alasdair Stewart, the company’s UK brand director, said: "The new Octavia vRS has a very special place in the heart of everyone at Škoda.

"It unites our love of motorsport, sharp design and bold engineering, and is one of the most exciting cars we’ve ever made."

The cheapest version, the petrol estate, starts at £22,990, with the entire Octavia RS range going on sale on August 1.

So you want a secondhand supermini...

AN OBSERVATION about first cars. All the sensible people I know, having chucked away their L-plates, go for something sensible that’ll start up first thing on a frosty morning. The petrolheads don’t. 

There’s a lot to be said for making for your first car an automotive adventure in itself, which is why my first car was a 1983 Mini. Despite being held together largely with gaffer tape and string I loved driving it but even I’ll concede it wasn’t exactly an everyday car, because every day was a new and exciting way for it to entertain you with a breakdown. Whisper it softly, but during my first stint as a reporter in North Wales my “everyday car” was a borrowed Vauxhall Corsa! 

So I understood completely when a friend asked for a few car buying suggestions, not on some crusty old Sixties sports car, but a sensible, cheap secondhand supermini that’d actually be capable of getting her and her clobber up to a new job in Northumberland. She also bought a Mini as her first car, and while she’d rather sell her right arm than her pride ‘n’ joy I can understand why she’d want a more sensible automotive sidekick for the long trips to the North East. 

There’s plenty on offer - even in these days of spiralling insurance, it’s still possible to buy, insure and tax a decent set of wheels for less than a grand – but if it were my money I’d be looking at Peugeot’s 306, VW’s Lupo, Skoda’s Fabia and the earlier, funkier versions of Toyota’s Yaris. They’re all usefully younger than my trusty old Rover, should eake out a few more miles to the gallon and – by virtue of being younger – have plenty of life left in them. The Peugeot, in particular, would offer you more smiles per gallon too because it’s always been a fine handler – perfect if your other car’s an old Mini and you’ve got some Northumbrian country roads to play with. 

But, when it came down to sealing the deal, it wasn’t a 306 she went for, or a Yaris, Fabia or Lupo for that matter. In fact, she’d gone for the supermini you can pick up for buttons these days because everybody owned one and as a result there’s still millions to choose from. The supermini I’ve driven on countless occasions and always secretly enjoyed because it rides and handles so well. The supermini, in fact, that I passed my driving test in and which – had I not decided to go for that infernal Mini – probably would’ve been my first car. 

The supermini I’d completely forgotten about. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Ford Fiesta!

Fire up the... Skoda Citigo

THE ONLY way is up! That's what Europe's biggest car company - the mighty VW Group - are hoping you'll conclude if you're thinking of buying a small car to squeeze into tight parking spaces.

Yet you don't actually have to stump up for a Volkswagen if you're looking to buy the up!, the German firm's smallest offering. Trek down to your nearest Skoda showroom and they'll happily sell you the same car in all but name. That's the joy of the Skoda Citigo.

Skoda, in case you hadn't noticed, stopped making Eastern Bloc oddities years ago and is now quietly taking over the world with a range of cleverly thought-out cars which are usefully cheaper than their VW cousins; the Yeti you'll already know and love, there's a new Octavia saloon on the way, and for anyone thinking of a Golf or Focus there's now the Rapid hatchback too. The Citigo's a bit more obviously related to its siblings - the aforementioned up! and the SEAT Mii - but that's by no means a bad thing.

You get, for instance, the same neatly-proportioned body, although the Skoda's styling is more conservative than the up!'s. You get the same 60bhp, 1.0 litre petrol powerplant with its offbeat engine note, the same gearbox, and the same solidly built, suprisingly roomy interior. You get an awful lot for your money but - and here's the important bit - you get it for quite a bit less than you would if you'd gone for the cachet of the VW badge instead. Depending on which version you go for, you can save roughly between £500 and a grand by opting for the Czech-badged car.

The trickier question, as I mentioned when I drove the up! earlier this year, is whether to go for it over a Fiat Panda, which lacks the Skoda's solidity and style but is roomier and more fun to drive. That's a tough one to call, but if you're dead set on the up! and its siblings you'll be quids in by swapping the Veedub badge for a Skoda one.

Clever marketing or VW shooting itself in the foot? You decide...

The Skoda Octavia is a Czech motoring icon

IT HIT me as I pulled a fistful of Koruna out of my pocket to pay for the enormous glass of Pilsner. Prague, thanks to public transport that’s second to none, doesn’t really need the car.

During my three days in the Czech capital last week it struck me that the central European city’s a cracking holiday destination largely because it’s very pretty, almost everyone speaks English and the beer’s very cheap. However, the added bonus is that everything is linked up to everything else using a mind bogglingly comprehensive spaghetti of trams, buses, boats and underground trains.

Praguers, then, don’t really need to drive, but when they do they almost always go for the same car. The Skoda Octavia.

You might think Skoda’s mid-range offering is fairly unremarkable but on the bustling streets of Prague they’re everywhere – the taxi drivers swear by them, every police patrol vehicle is an Octavia vRS and every other parking space for miles around is filled with the Czech company’s finest. True, Skoda offers value for money like few other car companies but you just couldn't imagine Londoners taking up say, the Rover 75, with anything like the same vigour.

There are even a couple of horrors within the pages of this uniquely Czech success story – I couldn’t help but take a picture of a navy blue model some colourblind yoof had decked out with yellow alloys, silver door handles and green bumpers!

The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy fan in me had secretly hoped every alley in Prague would be littered with Eastern Bloc oddities from the bad old days, but all I found were Octavias. In fact, I had to venture all the way to the city’s technical museum to get a glimpse of the old school Skodas and Tatras – idiosyncratic, rear-engined offerings which you were allocated largely on your standing within the communist party. They’re fascinating footnotes from the country’s industrial past but the museum pieces are just that – exhibits, which looked all the more obsolete because they were displayed alongside decadent, capitalist classics like Jaguars and BMWs from the same era.

In fact, it was only towards the end of my trip I tracked down a proper socialist saloon – a Trabant, which I know is of East German origin but would have been a common sight here a generation ago. Yet just as you’re more likely to see a branch of KFC than a Soviet tank in central Prague in these days, so the Trabbie, intriguing though it was, looked a bit ridiculous in a city that’s long since turned its back on the bad old days.

Naturally, it was parked next to a modern motor I’d much rather drive. A Skoda Octavia.

Czech out these stunning classic cars from the Prague Technical Museum

TODAY'S Life On Cars treat comes all the way from Prague, which is fascinating for all sorts of reasons if you're into car culture.

There are all sorts of reasons why you'd enjoy the Czech capital if you enjoy things with wheels and engines - some of which I'll go into tomorrow - but above all I'd reccomend a trip to the city's Technical Museum, which is a bit off the beaten tourist track but is off the petrolhead scale in terms of exhibits.

Not only do you get all the automotive oddities you'd expect to find in a distinctly Czech museum, including plenty of Skodas and Tatras, but all sorts of stunning machines produced long before the Iron Curtain went up. I'm not sure how a Jaguar SS1, an unrestored Mercedes W154 Grand Prix car and a Bugatti Type 51 ended up in Prague, but I'm glad they did. However, even they couldn't play fiddle to what, for me, was their most prized possession of all - a MKIX Spitfire, which was flown by Czechoslovak fighter pilots who served with the RAF in the Second World War.

Here are just some of the cars offering a handy distraction for any car nuts who fancy giving the Charles Bridge a miss...

Read more of Life On Cars writer David Simister's motoring reflections on Prague tomorrow (June 24).

The Skoda Rapid is the ideal Golf that's not a Golf

YOU'LL have all seen the ad's simplistic strapline by now. Why buy something like a Golf when you can buy a Golf?

Ironically, it'll become a much tougher question than you'd think when Volkswagen itself launches a Golf that's a bit like a Golf a little later this year. Only it'll be made by Skoda and chances are it'll be cunningly cheaper. We've got the Chinese to thank for the new Rapid - apparently, it's been designed with their booming market in mind - but it means that for the first time the Czechs have got a car that'll compete directly against the Astra, the Focus and the million other mid-sized hatches on sale right now. Oh, and against the Golf, the flagship of sister company VW's range.

Admittedly, it's got a slightly naff name in the finest Skoda tradition, because go-faster yoofs will realise it ain't as rapid as it says on the tin (note to Skoda: get cracking on the vRS version) while older readers might gag a little at the connotations of the godawful Rapid, a rally winning rear-engined oddity you could buy in the bad old days of Skoda being run by resentful communists in the old Eastern Bloc. But then again, Skoda also produces the equally odd-sounding Superb, which really is what it says on't tin, and the Yeti off-roader, which isn't at all abominable but is quite good on mountain terrain.

I haven't driven the Rapid yet - it goes on sale here at the end of the year - and the all important question of prices still hasn't been answered, but the signs are looking good. In fact, the car itself looks good; swipe the Skoda's badges and stick four interlocking rings on the grille and you'd swear it was a new Audi. Say what you like, but it's a fine looking thing.

While everyone else has been fretting about the environment or slimming down its range in reaction to the recession Skoda's been quietly getting on with making cheap, practical cars, which is why they're absolutely everywhere these days. Yes, I know that the Golf is the best-selling car in Europe and it's nice to drive and built like a bunker, but it's priced as though it's been made from unobtainium. The only reason you'd buy one over a Rapid is because you're either going for the Golf GTI (in which case I don't blame you) or because you're a bit sniffy about Skodas. Beneath the skin they're almost identical.

I've no doubt the Rapid will describe the speed it flies out of the company's showrooms but the big question will be whether it can topple my favourite something-like-a-Golf-that's-not-a-Golf.

The Ford Focus.

Life On Cars, Issue Seven!

THE LATEST edition of the Life On Cars magazine is ready!

Packed with the latest motoring reviews, news and features, it's an edition with winter in mind, and there's plenty behind the snowy cover to keep you entertained as the nights draw in.

Enjoy the read and let us know what you think...

Open publication - Free publishing - More cars

Life On Cars: the next issue

EAGLE-eyed readers might have already spotted that the Ferrari Enzo on this very blog is now a brand new Skoda.

That's because there's a new issue of the Life On Cars Magazine on the way, and this rather wintry cover is all I can offer as a bit of a sneak preview. The finished product should be ready to read in the next couple of days.

Hope you're looking forward to it...

The older editions, including the Ormskirk MotorFest preview edition, can still be read by clicking here.

Come on VW, bring the beach buggy back

TRUE to tradition the best of a bunch of new baby Volkswagens is in fact a Skoda.

Germany's giant of the car industry spent ages teasing us with the up! - which for the sake of keeping our grammar school pedants happy I'm going to immediately rename Up - which finally kills off the firm's unloved Fox in favour of a proper, cleverly thought out city car contender. Five minutes later Skoda (a Volkswagen-owned company, don't forget) launched a startingly similar car called the Citigo, which I'll bet my shoes will be every bit as good as the Veedub but quite a bit cheaper. Shot, self, foot and so on.

What grabbed my attention though was an Up which probably won't be arriving in your nearest showroom any time soon, called the Buggy Up. In a nutshell, it is a bright orange beach buggy, and beach buggies are very cool. During last week's unseasonably warm weather I'd have loved to have one in the garage.

Think about it; in an instant VW's moved the Up from its natural habitat of Liverpool city centre on a grey Monday morning to some sun-kissed boulevard in California which probably only exists in the heads of marketing men and Beach Boys fans. I've always had a soft spot for them because they are in essence convertibles with added convertible-ness and rugged styling, which is why I think the beach buggies based on the old VW Beetle sold as well as they did in the Sixties.

Sure, I appreciate that in Britain you'll look stupid if you turn up to business meetings in Burscough in a bright orange beach buggy, soaked because it's raining yet again, but VW would daft not to at least try selling it to the Americans.

Then again, some enterprising Skoda employees would probably launch their own version five minutes later. Shot, self, foot...

Fire up the.... Skoda Roomster

IT'S roomy, reliable, really rather nice to drive and a bargain to boot. Yep, the Skoda Yeti's got all the bases covered when it comes to family cars.

So superb is Skoda's chunky off-road crossover that it was one of a select few cars shortlisted for the not-at-all prestigious Life On Cars car of the year award, as you might have read on here last month. It's perfect for lugging things and dogs about from your home to the countryside, and thanks to Skoda still being from the bargain-basement end of the VW Group's range it's surprisingly good value compared to its rivals.

The only problem for the Czech carmaker is that's just the description you would have given less than two years to the Roomster, a similarly-sized Skoda you'd be forgiven for thinking has been completely eclipsed by the younger Yeti.

Sure, the older offering doesn't give you the same feeling of quality you'd get in the Yeti when it comes to the quality of the interior, with the gearknob on the version I tried being particularly plasticky. But it's still something designed under the watch of sturdiness-obsessed Volkswagen, and what you lack in colour coordination and excitement is easily made up by its feeling of unremitting toughness.

Nor it as commanding as the Yeti or as sporty as Peugeot's much newer 3008 to drive, but it still feels like a car - and emphatically not a people carrier, van or off-roader - from behind the wheel. The Roomster's party trick was always to feel Westminster Abbey spacious in the rear and yet cocooned and cosy in the front, and once you've taken one on even the briefest of drives you'll instantly understand the logic behind that initially odd styling.

But here's the killer; while the Roomster's not as good as its newer, similarly-sized sister, it's also a good two grand cheaper across the range, while offering a distinctively different look and even more space inside, where it matters.

Unless you're completely won over by the Yeti it's a Skoda to overlook at your peril.

As published in The Champion on January 12, 2011

UPDATE: Life On Cars is launching the not-at-all tenuously titled Prepare to fire up the... section next week, giving you a glimpse at some of 2011's big hitters long before they hit the showrooms. Watch this space...

The mystery of the Skover pickup

FORGET Nessie or the Beast of Bodmin Moor. Stranger things have happened, as one Life On Cars reader has found out!

Jamie Frew sent in this picture of the strange cross-breed he spotted in a dark supermarket car park somewhere near Glasgow, which appears to splice the genes of the Rover 200 I bought earlier this month with the early Nineties efforts of a certain Czech car maker. It's the Skover Felicia... I think.

I love the idea that a cash-strapped Rover Group would have gone knocking on Skoda's door with a cheque for the Czechs, in return for a tarted-up pickup truck which could have been sold alongside Metros and MGFs. It is badge engineering at its cheapest, simplest level.

Oh alright, I'll come clean; it's a Skoda Felicia Pickup, which someone thought they could improve by removing all the original badging and replacing with Rover wheels and radiator grille. The idea, I take it, was to take away the outdated connotations of cheapness which used to come with Skoda, and replace it with Roverised visions of restraint and refinement.

I'm not entirely sure it's worked...

Fire up the... Skoda Yeti

SAY what you like about Skoda's strange choice of name for its latest model, but this is definitely one Yeti worth tracking down.

Having already won over rough ‘n' rugged off-roader types with the Scout four-wheel-drive version of the Octavia estate it was only a matter of time before the Czech car company came up with a real mountain goat of a motor and this, a distant relation to Volkswagen's Golf and Audi's A3, is the result. Cute and challenging at the same time.

Clamber into the cockpit and you're definitely not in the driver's seat of a jacked-up hatchback or an MPV with countryside styling cues; if a Land Rover Discovery went on the Atkins diet, chances are this is what it would feel like. Even though the version I drove stuck to powering just the front wheels everything about the commanding driving position, the view along the bonnet and the defiantly diesel noise the 2.0 TDi engine makes screams pure off-roader.

That's the reason why you're not going to find hot hatch handling when you head into the corners a tad too quickly, but both on the backroads and out on the motorways the Yeti performs impressively enough. It's just a shame that with some of the sillier options the version I drove cost almost £22,000, which I'd rather spend on the optional four-wheel-drive system and make it truly capable over tricky terrain.

Almost everyone who came across the Yeti loved it for exactly the same reason; if you have a dog and enjoy going for walks in the muddy countryside, you're going to struggle to better the Yeti without resorting to much more expensive machinery.

Clearly the writers of Auto Express do, because they've just made it their car of the year.

Buy a Yeti and your Labrador is going to love it. Luckily, so will you.

As published in The Champion on August 18, 2010

Skoda's having the last laugh now

IT'S been a while since I've made a car joke, but I'll have a go anyway. What do you call a Skoda with an open sunroof? Expensive.

If I'd tried 15 years ago I could have nonchalently just said “a skip” and brought the house down, but there's the rub; Skoda just don't make joke cars anymore.

This is just one of the things I've worked out after spending a week with a Yeti, which sounds like an elusive snowman but is in fact what happens if you were to stick an SUV in the wash on too hot a setting. It looks, sounds and acts like a much smaller Land Rover Discovery but absolutely everyone who came across it loved it.

I got it instantly; it's a car for taking dogs to the countryside. Much like a Discovery then, but much, much cheaper.

It's the same story with Skoda's other cars; step out of Carlisle railway station and hail a cab and it's almost always a white Octavia that'll pick you up, because the drivers and taxi firms swear by them. When I was lucky enough to sit alongside a North Wales Police traffic cop on a high speed chase along the A55 last year, it was an Octavia vRS they entrusted with the task. And it's amazing how driving instructors favour Fabias over Fiestas for a spot of low speed kerb-clipping.

In fact the only problem with Skoda is some of the silly options pricing, which meant with all the bells and whistles the particular Yeti I drove was a £22,000 car, with most of the money going towards a spectacular-but-silly sunroof and a £1,400 satnav system which you don't need. In fact, I'd rather throw the money at the four-wheel-drive system and make it a proper off-roader.

If I were sensible I'd buy a Skoda tomorrow, but I'm not, which I've wasted my hard-earned on another clapped-out classic.

Tune in next week and find out what it is...

Check out the blog for an online-only treat on Wednesday, July 28.

Skoda's second generation vRS is sporty but spacious

HUNTING for a hot hatch with a difference? Worry not, because Skoda may have just the motor for you in its newly-launched Fabia vRS.

The Czech car company has just unveiled its second generation of the sporty supermini, which it reckons offers both tremendous value and the option of a speedy estate for keen drivers looking for an involving drive.

"The new vRS is the fastest production Fabia ever built, and builds on its predecessor’s reputation for high performance, low running costs and remarkable value for money," a Skoda spokesperson said of the company's latest product.

"Overall, the vRS offers fantastic value for money, particularly when compared to the competition. Where else can you find a 180bhp engine with DSG, paddles, LED lights and loads of standard kit for £15,700 for the hatch and £16,495 for the estate version?"

Unlike the previous Fabia vRS the new arrival ditches diesel in favour of getting its power from a revvy petrol engine, and - unlike rival hot hatches from Renault, Peugeot and Volkswagen - also comes as an estate for those wanting space as well as pace.

Thanks to its 180bhp powerplant acceleration from 0-62mph takes just 7.3 secs, with a top speed of 139mph (140mph for the estate). For more information on the fastest of the Fabias, visit Skoda's website at www.skoda.co.uk.