Skoda Superb 1.8 Ambition: wk 1

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By Paul Pottinger

Part 1 from Carsguide.com.au

The blokes at ŠKODA permitted themselves a wry smile last week at Ford Australia’s shock decision to join the 21st century by sticking a modern engine in their Falcon.

For almost a decade, the Volkswagen Group have been equipping family-sized cars with engines akin to the Falcon's forthcoming turbocharged 2.0-litre direct-injection four-cylinder petrol unit - although to read the more impressionable hacks about the traps, you'd think Ford's gambit was comparable to the splitting of the atom.

Naturally, knuckle draggers and those mentally inhabiting the 1950s will deplore this entirely necessary directional change ("Snot a Foulcan wivvout an inloyne six", they bleat), albeit one that costs taxpayers $42 million federally via the so-called Green Car Fund and Victorian's citizens yet more via their ever biddable state government's undisclosed contribution.

If Ford Australia can get the quality right (something which remains wanting, as the JD Powers survey and reader complaints reveal), it could achieve an extraordinary reinvention of the big Strayan family car and thoroughly steal the march on vacillating Holden.

So why should the view of those at the still slowly re-emerging Czech marque, which sells roughly one-25th of the brand from Broadmeadows, matter at all? Because in the Superb (the name of which has already been far too often played upon by the dopey), ŠKODA have a perfect example of how to do a big car with an engine that's small on capacity, but big enough on performance.

First tested by Carsguide last year at the world launch on the billiard table roads of Austria, we're getting reacquainted with this impressive model line-up on the third world roads of Australia.

Even in entry level guise, with the VW Group's excellent 1.8-litre direct injection turbo petrol motor, the interior quality exceeds the basic Passat (on which platform it's based). The upscale version, which we'll get into in a week or so, are up with Passat's range-topping R36 and CC, which in turn beg comparison with the world standard set by Audi - for drastically less cash.

Thought slightly narrower than a typical Australian sedan, the Superb is slightly longer and, with its twin-door liftback "boot" enormously capacious.

An 800km urban and rural drive beckons to see if this swankily-named ŠKODA translates to this part of the planet.