Flash Run For Your Money

Newcastle Herald

Saturday November 1, 2008

BRENT DAVISON

SO there we were in Canberra, the Federal Highway nearby and the Wakefield Park racing circuit about 90 kilometres distant. At our disposal was Skoda's rather clever Octavia RS TDI, a sporty car with a difference.

Different? How else can we describe a compact station wagon sitting there as flash as a rat with a gold tooth, with a performance diesel under the bonnet and a six-speed, twin-clutch automatic transmission attached to it?

Practical, sporty, good-looking and potentially thrifty, this Skoda is a kind of "all things to all people" kind of vehicle capable of suiting most needs.

The basis for it comes courtesy of Skoda parent Volkswagen. True, it might not look terribly Volkswagen-ish but the platform comes straight from the versatile Golf and so does the mechanical package.

RS becomes the first Australian Skoda to run Volkswagen's "sporty" diesel power plant, a 2.0 litre, inline four-cylinder with high-pressure, common-rail, direct-injection diesel engine with an intercooled turbocharger to make it interesting.

End result? A very useful 125 kilowatts at 4200rpm (pleasantly high for a diesel, even one redlined at 4500rpm) and 350 Newton metres of torque that comes fully on-song at 1750rpm and stays there through to 2500rpm, the effective premium torque point.

A petrol engine effectively the 147 kilowatt, 280 Newton metre 2.0 litre from the Golf GTI is also available for the car. Interestingly, it does not come with the six-speed automatic, only a six-speed manual and sits $2000 below the diesel in the price range. It will, however, get a seven-speed automatic in the first half of next year.

On the drive to Wakefield Park the car felt like a hot hatch should feel. Firm ride courtesy of the recalibrated suspension and big tyres wrapped around 18-inch wheels, meaty steering with plenty of feel and good throttle response that is free of lag from the turbocharger.

And an engine note that just sounded good. Not quite a diesel, not quite a petrol and with a refreshing growl at just the right moments.

Not unexpectedly there was some road noise generated by the tyres but it was about the only noise coming into the cabin.

On the race track, though, the story was quite a different one, with the car's track abilities governed by the transmission.

This Volkswagen-engineered Dynamic Shift Gearbox (DSG) is effectively two three-speed transmissions mounted side by side, each with alternate ratios and governed by a control system that predicts gear changes and carries them off without loss of power.

On the road it is gorgeous and superior in almost every way to conventional manual and automatic transmissions.

On the track, though, it is annoying, refusing to shift down at high speeds courtesy of electronics designed to preserve both it and the engine but taking the edge off those lap record attempts. And the turbo lag experienced when gassing it out of slow corners was disappointing.

Good thing, then, that Skoda has a manual transmission available. We shot around Wakefield in the liftback sedan with petrol engine and six-speed and loved it.

The car could be balanced on brakes and engine in corners and came cleanly out of turns with almost instantaneous throttle response and all of it helped by a quick-fire shifter and light, short-travel clutch.

With all that seriously good boy racer stuff piled into the RS wagon, owners need only dream of hot lapping the Nurburgring on a run to the shops.

SKODA OCTAVIA PRICING

(not including on-road costs)

LIFTBACK

2.0 litre turbo-diesel (man) ....... $39,490

2.0 litre turbo-diesel (auto) ....... $41,790

2.0 litre turbo-petrol (man)........ $37,490

STATION WAGON

2.0 litre turbo-diesel (man) ....... $41,490

2.0 litre turbo-diesel (auto) ....... $43,790

2.0 litre turbo-petrol (man)........ $39,490

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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