Skoda Octavia VR5 Estate 2005 - Present

When you first The Skoda Octavia is no spring chicken! It's been around for 50 years now on and off, but spending a week with the new Octavia VRS estate really opened my eyes.

We had a job to do: Load our exhibition inventory into the back, drive 400 miles there, arriving at lunchtime, drive 400 miles back and do three days of continuous standing and talking in between. No mean feat eh! So having something special to spend that 15 hours on the road in was at least some small consolation!

When you first get into the Octavia VRS, you know you are getting into a car which means business. Despite being quite a large estate car it is finished in the way you'd expect a sports saloon or coupé to be. The supportive sports seats and small steering wheel, the excellent sound system and the lay-back posture give a tremendous air of confidence. Once on the road this confidence is immediately realised. This is no mean performer. It has a tremendously torquey diesel engine, which is incredibly flexible yet which retains the out-and-out power to be delivered when pushed up to the higher revs.

The interior immediately gained the favour of Mrs C, who let's not forget, also had to endure the 15 hour round trip. The supportive 'bucket' type seats, with their faux-suede and heaps of legroom It's a mark of a good all-round car when both passenger and driver emerge at the end equally satisfied and both glowing with
 
praise at the end of it all. Now the UK motorway network is never conducive to giving a car a thorough test of what it's capable of. That was never the intention with this drive. What it did do, however, was make a long and monotonous journey that much more enjoyable.

Even the mundane, boring yet inevitable traffic jams in the North West of England, I say inevitable, as we hit that area at bang-on morning rush-hour. It was either suffer it there or, if we'd left later, Birmingham, so it was the lesser of two evils. The cabin just seems to relax you, despite the mayhem all around caused by a truck that had broken down in lane 3 just north of Preston (oh the joys!). The second half of the journey – from Lancaster to Glasgow has always been one of my favourite motorway stretches in the UK. The scenery is spectacular, the traffic is usually far quieter than the first and once the cruise control is clicked on, it really is like a pleasure trip. The miles just flew past and before we knew it we were on the M8 and nearly there.

The VRS is undoubtedly a car that can deliver in performance, comfort and practicality. The weekend proved beyond doubt that you can have more than one strength in a car. I was actually sad to see it go at the end of the week, as I had become quite attached to its seemingly limitless reserves of power, performance, space and sheer enjoyment when driving. It is one of those cars that you have an urge to go out and drive just for the fun of it. It was a really enjoyable experience all round.

When weighed up in terms of value for money it really does offer an astounding car at an apparently bargain price. Many of the cars I have driven over the last couple of years have impressed me for various reasons. Perhaps all cars are genuinely getting better. Perhaps I'm getting easier to please. Whatever the reasons, I always look at the value for money aspect and I couldn't help but be bowled over by just how much car you get for your money with the Octavia VRS Estate. It's a car that has loads of space when used as a 'family' car, it is thrifty enough to keep any Scrooges satisfied, especially when eating up lots of miles on a long journey, but most importantly its appeal to the driver is tremendous. It is impressive, fun, exciting and it even looks the part, with the newly-rounded frontage, the coloured brake calipers shining through the 18” alloys, and the subtle VRS badging.

If I now had to summarise very quickly in a few words, I'd have to say “Can I have one please?”

Nigel Crawford
April 2009.

http://www.thebabywebsite.com/article.1895.Skoda_Octavia_VRS_Estate.htm

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