The result is a truly old-school fast car: one that you can go quick point to point in, without being rattled around the cabin like suitcases in a turbulent airliner. Set the powertrain to be angry, leave the steering weight alone, and then – crucially – set the dampers to Comfort. Which we’ll let you in on.ĭelve into the touchscreen and fiddle around with the individual mode. And then, well, there’s a trick, the Easter egg, the secret handshake. Officially, it’s called Dynamic Chassis Control. The test car Skoda sent us had simply been equipped with Skoda’s usual adaptive dampers. The Superb has not got particularly trick suspenson: it doesn’t scan the road ahead looking for bumps, or have electro-hydraulic many-volt anti-roll Batman tech on board to calculate the most precise, German-approved way to deal with a pothole. It’s got ride comfort than needs to be felt to be believed.

It’s the sort of car you could ooze up to 120mph on the autobahn in, and the only thing that’d alert your passenger to the speed you’d acquired would be arrival at the destination half an hour earlier.įine, it’s got performance, and a massive boot.

There’s never a thwack in the back, but it accrues speed beautifully. The gearbox trusts the engine to deliver the torque, and let it rev out cleanly, and boy does this thing have elasticity to it. It’s not startled into kicking down and trying to select second when fourth would do. There’s very little noise, and in the big mixed mag of VW Group double-clutch gearboxes, the Superb’s got a great one. Amazing for a huge 4x4 auto-gearbox road-going canal boat. Partly, that’s down to this being lighter than it looks: usefully under 1.7 tonnes, in fact. So, in the best possible way, it feels faster than it is.

But the way this Skoda delivers its bubble-wrapped punch is smoother than a Michael Bublé Christmas carol. And then baffle them with its uncanny reserves of pace as you engage the turbo and head off on another undercover mission. Pitch it down a congested stretch of motorway and marvel at how the lane-hoggers hurry out of your way, mistaking the Superb’s stern face for an unmarked police car. And while this only has half the engine (of an RS6, not the NASA rocket), it’s ten times less obnoxious. Space shuttles carried satellites into orbit with less capacity. The Skoda has a much bigger boot – an echoing cathedral of 1,950 litres.

Skoda plus cz