Skoda Superb test drive since 2008 -

Skoda Superb: to like

The updated Skoda Superb is still an elongated VW Passat platform, a relatively humane price and ideology Simply Clever. It’s just that now the car has become a little less simplicity and a little more than genius.
 
Skoda and VW are now perceived as a son and father: it seems that without the second the first did not exist at all. This, of course, is not like that: even we know the pre -war trucks, and trolleybuses with Skoda nameplates still run the same, independent. It was simply the development of modern Europe for the Czech brand that began precisely when the government allowed the automaker to get out of its wing and sold part of the VW concern.
What happened then? Complete modernization of production, expansion of the lineup, universal recognition and strict struggle against the previous image.
By the way, it still continues. Give a million on Skoda what are you crazy? More recently, such a waste was unthinkable. The most expensive in the Skoda Superb of the first generation can not be called a ball of fate: technical filling (and with her price) were clearly higher than marketing successes. They did not like, they did not understand Superb with us, and lined up for the passes, which were sold almost 15 (!) Times better.
  
What to call such a body: liftdan? Or sedanbek? No matter how you call it, we state: conveniently. To throw a couple of bags, you do not need to mess with a heavy lid: just squeeze the handle above the license plate and the small sash will easily open the window into the deep shaft of the trunk.
If the narrow opening is not enough, we clamp the next key. The rear window will become closed with the lid, and they will open together. Such a trunk opening system is called Twindoor
Today, the new Skoda is ready to imagine fresh trump cards in its favor. Not close to you? The photographer asks me, placing his 192 cm of growth on the front chair. Roma, yes there is still a reserve! .. I answer from the back sofa. Superb stretched 35, became 8 and 52 mm wider. A little, of course, but was the previous generation cramped? The developers played not in size, but on design.
Their terrible dream with dialogs like: some strange Passat you have, so it's Superb! forgotten. The front is the same like that of VW, a spray for headlights, with semicircles around the edges, but in general, the form is not at all like! If it were not for the pretty swelling of the radiator lattice, smoothing the severity of the crystal gaze, it seems that the optics were prepared not in Volsburg, but in Munich.
The back stroke is still heavy, but in front of us is a hybrid of a sedan and an elevator! That is, the trunk can be opened both traditionally by raising only the lid, and on the scope: opening the entire gate of the connected covers and glass. It turns out that the hardness of the body is violated and compensated by the monumental counter. The exterior does not spoil this, but the visibility interferes pretty much.
 
Superb is equipped with AFS Active Light Management. In the urban cycle of movement (at a speed of up to 50 km/h), a beam of light does not hit in the distance, but in breadth: so that the driver better see what is happening along the edges of the road. If the speed is above 90, then the system works the other way around. In addition, AFS is ensuring that the driver does not blind with highlight oncoming cars. Such a system of configuration of the Elegance configuration; She works in conjunction with bi-ksenon.
And finally, the rear headlights: wide, elongated, famously moving to wings are not traditional Skoda and not Volkswagen. This is generally not like anything. A new look at the rear of the Czech business class. Authentic, but at the same time, friendly and pretty executed. So that the eyes escorting Superb could not come off. So that Skoda was perceived not just like a large car, but really catchy. To like it.
The salon should also like, but there are fewer revelations. With excellent ergonomics, he does not move on a yota from classic Volkswagen ideas about a convenient interior. The quality noticeable in the little things: the metal pens of the door open on the inside and the plastic very friendly to the touch is in those places where you are most often in contact with it.
Nevertheless, there are in these brilliant inserts framing the climate and radio, something glossy, unnatural, as if someone had hung a poster with a photograph of a pop star on a stone decoration of a noble fireplace. However, this performance is successfully smoothed out by visual scales of devices, sophisticated into shallow wells, and a convenient four -spoke steering wheel. It was taken by computer and radio control, which is traditionally for cars of this group.
 
TFT-6.5 touchscreen sensory is equipped with an interface for a phone or for connecting to an audio system and a CD changer. The new Superb, coupled with the Columbus navigation system, can also have a TV resort in the arsenal, receiving both analog and digital signals.
In addition, a new 2 DIN AM/FM Bolero Car Radio radio equipped with a SD-and MMC cards, with RDS and TP systems with a dual antenna for receiving FM frequency and a built-in CD changer on a dual antenna slot, was designed. 6 CD.
The huge space of the second row is good to use not only for the transportation of passengers. The interior is transformable: you can fold the back back in parts or use a hatch in the middle. The catch is that a flat platform will not work: the sofa pillow does not lean back. However, the minimum 565 l of the trunk is quite a worthy result.
Having parted with Superb, he involuntarily felt: he clung. To quality execution, excellent ergonomics, and, importantly, outstanding appearance. And when colleagues left the parking lot, he looked at Superb for a long time. Now I know exactly why they made such headlights. To like it.
 
Engine 1.8, which is equipped with a test car, can aggregate with advanced checkpoint of the DSG series, with two parallel clutch or traditional six -speed mechanics. We got this option.
That it is worth noting at once the excellent sound insulation of the salon.
Even if you use the potential of the tandem of the motor-fraud according to the full program (in the first gear before cutting up to 60, in the second for 100 km/h), only a moderate whisper makes its way into the salon. Although the engine itself is by no means quiet. You can see this by opening the hood.
In general, the control of Skoda Superb is worthy of all sorts of praise. The suspension perfectly tolerates pits and irregularities, not informing passengers about them, the clarity of the inclusion mechanism of the programs is excellent, the steering wheel is informative, and only long -term adhesion at the end of the path began to tire a little.
Acceleration of a 1.8-liter 160-horsepower engine provides quite confident, but you can’t call it especially gambling. Alas: Skoda has not yet represented turbo leads (except for diesel). But there are two options with all -wheel drive transmission.
 
Text: Alexander Mikhailov
Photo: Roman Zubko

 
   
 

Source: Wheel magazine [September 2008]