Skoda hatch is

EVERYTHING fell into place one day last month. It was one of the last extraordinarily warm days of the year, traffic seemed to have deserted the roads and I was in a truly entertaining car.

The North Yorkshire moors in a Ferrari 488GTB, perhaps? Actually no, it was a Skoda Fabia in Buckingshamshire.

I was at the launch of the facelifted Fabia, Skoda’s megaselling top value hatchback.

There’s nothing odd about a facelift halfway through a car’s life but there is in this instance because the Fabia is built on the same platform as the VW Polo and Seat Ibiza. Both of those have recently been totally revamped and use the new Volkswagen Group small car platform known as MQB AO, whereas the Fabia doesn’t.

The fact its handling might be made a bit sharper with a new chassis is unlikely to be noticed by Fabia buyers and it’s already spacious enough without the need to stretch the wheelbase with a new platform.

Certainly there isn’t much wrong with the way the Fabia Skoda Fabia Colour Edition five-door hatchback

1.0-litre threecylinder, 95bhp

10.8sec

61.4mpg

drives. One change for 2018 is that a diesel engine is no longer offered. Only 5% of the previous cars were ordered this way so Skoda has rightly decided not to bother. All the petrol engines are 1.0-litre three-cylinder units – one is naturally aspirated and produces 75bhp and two others are turbocharged and put out