Price as tested: €24,265
+ Simplicity, quality, reliability, space, practicality, price, styling, comfort
– A few rough edges showing through to go with that price tag, indifferent handling
= As practical and sensible as they come but we'd save up the extra for the new Octavia
If I were to say that the new Skoda Rapid is both and at once a return to classic form for Skoda and something of an unfortunate step backwards, would that be too confusing? Possibly, so let me explain.
Pre-1998, Skoda was to most people a joke and not an especially funny one. Decades of decrepitude under communist rule meant that Skoda had been starved of development funding and any reason to produce competitive, interesting cars. That changed, dramatically, with the launch of the original Octavia, funded and developed by Skoda's new owner, Volkswagen. At once, the yoke of communism was thrown off, and Skoda marched happily forwards into a new capitalist reality. Successive models, from the Fabia to the second generation Octavia to the Superb to the utterly brilliant Yeti underpinned that reality with success, both critical and financial. And with sophistication. In fact, sit into a Yeti or a Superb today and you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between affordable Skoda and aspirational Audi. They are that good.
But there is now an increasing trend in the motor industry towards making cheaper cars, something that the car buying public is lapping up, as the success of Dacia shows. Make something simple and affordable, and you will capture the wallets, if not the hearts, of many. So it is with the Rapid. Skoda has taken a step back from its shiny, sophisticated recent past and looked further back, to the eighties and beyond, when it made simple, affordable, useful cars. (Never mind the inept comedians of the eighties who castigated Skoda – its cars even then were better by far than their reputation would have you believe.)
The Rapid is a family-sized hatchback that occupies an unusual middle ground between the likes of the Polo and Fiesta on one side and the Golf and Focus on the other. It's narrower by far than a Focus, but also much longer, the upside of which is a cabin that, while not very broad, has lots of leg and head-room for tall passengers in both front and rear, and a massive 550-litre boot that makes the trunks of even cars like a Mondeo or Passat look underfed.
So, it pushes all the practical buttons and it's not short of sophistication either. The engine in our test car was the cutting-edge VW Group 1.6 TDI diesel, and with 105bhp and 250Nm of torque, it's both swift and economical. Skoda claims 4.4-litres per 100km fuel consumption (64mpg) and if we didn't quite manage that, we easily broke the 50mpg barrier. 114g/km Co2 emissions is a touch high though, especially when you consider that a VW Golf with essentially the same engine gets closer to 100g/km, and that means your annual tax bill will be €200. It's here that you'll find the first chink in the Rapid's armour though. The engine (or possibly its installation) is fine, but nothing more. Acceleration feels noticeably slow-witted unless you push the oddly-weighted throttle pedal all the way to its stop, and refinement isn't terrific until you settle down at a chosen cruising speed.
Inside, Skoda has made great efforts to make the cabin look and feel as sophisticated as its bigger brothers, while still costing less. It's a neat trick, and Skoda almost pulls it off. The dials are clear and look like expensive watch faces. The steering wheel feels pleasant to hold and the driving position is both comfortable and well sited. But you'll notice that there's no switches in the front to control the rear windows, the grab handles in the roof clang back into position without a nice, soft motion and the plastics on the doors and dash-top, while still of good quality, don't have that nice touchy-softy-squishy feeling.
Because of all that, the Rapid feels a distinct degree less sophisticated than its Skoda cousins. Now, that's fine in the sense that it's also much cheaper. Prices start at just €16,515 (for the 1.2 MPI petrol; an engine best avoided if you want to (a) accelerate or (b) save fuel) and the pick of the range, the 1.2 TSI turbo petrol in Ambition spec, is just €19,550, with almost identical Co2 emissions to the diesel. All well and good, and those prices include standard electronic stability control – a significant benefit.
But it just doesn't feel as good to drive as it either should or could have. The rear suspension has been done on the cheap, relatively speaking, and uses simple torsion bars instead of the more modern multi-link setup as found on most Octavias. That means the boot is massive, but the Rapid does tend to clatter over bumps, and it never feels very well sorted at the front, either. Cornering is a somewhat lazy, imprecise process with vague steering and a sense of detachment. It's a good motorway cruiser, mind, with well suppressed engine noise and only a small amount of road and tyre noise.
I guess it depends what you want from a car. The Rapid is keenly priced, practical, spacious, ruggedly built, should prove reliable and hits its marks in terms of economy and emissions. It even looks quite nice. But I reckon Skoda buyers, by and large, have moved on recently and are enjoying the sheen of quiet luxury on recent models. So, perhaps it would be best to hold off buying, save up a little more, and get your hands on the impressive new Octavia that arrives in March. The Rapid's backward glance to a simpler, more practical time is appealing in many ways, but we all want to feel a little more sophisticated these days, don't we?
Facts & Figures
Skoda Octavia 1.6 TDI 105bhp Elegance
Price as tested: €24,265
Range price: €16,515 to €24,265
Capacity: 1,598cc
Power: 105bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Top speed: 190kmh
0-100kmh: 10.4sec
Economy: 4.4l-100km (64mpg)
CO2 emissions: 114g/km VRT Band: A4. €200 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star; 94% adult, 80% child, 69% pedestrian, 71% safety assist
