Skoda Scouts out the Superb
Damien O’Carroll says Skoda’s Superb Scout is perfect for people who need an SUV, but don’t want one.
Skoda has given the third-gen Superb a mid-life refresh with a bunch of external tweaks, revised engines, a new transmission, some new tech and the addition of an all-new model to the lineup – like the Octavia, the Superb now gets a jacked-up SUVesque Scout version of the wagon.
Is that the one you buy if you want to be part of the SUV club, but can’t bring yourself to actually buy an SUV?
Yep, that’s it. With all of 15mm of extra ride height, the Superb Scout is hardly going to be tackling much more challenging than the grass verge in front of the pony club, but that modest increase, additional underbody protection, the black plastic cladding on the wheel arches, doors and lower body and standard all-wheel drive all make sense for someone regularly traversing gravel roads or overgrown tracks and driveways.
But, yeah, generally it’s all about getting that rugged look. And it does look good. Granted not quite as good as the lower, sportier Superb Sportline wagon, but the chunky faux-off roader body addenda suits the handsome Superb, particularly with its new larger grille and more aggressively wedgy headlights.
Other new highlights added in the Superb’s mid-life refresh include the addition of adaptive full LED Matrix headlights (standard on the Scout, but optional on lesser models) and, most significantly, a new sevenspeed DSG transmission.
So why is the transmission the most significant thing?
Because as good as the Superb was to drive before with its older DSG, the new seven-speeder makes it even better again – noticeably faster shifts that are remarkably smooth and unobtrusive makes the Superb an even slicker open-road devourer, while also being much smoother and refined at urban speeds.
Sure, there are still a few small traditional DSG foibles, but they are so massively smoothed over these days as to be barely noticeable anymore – the slight hesitation on hills is the most noticeable thing, but a slight hesitation is light years away from the time I got a last-gen Superb stuck on my own (admittedly steep) driveway because its DSG transmission got utterly flummoxed while I was slowly manoeuvring around another car and simply sat there gently vibrating . . .
The new transmission is hooked up to a revised version of the most powerful engine in the Superb range
– a 200kW/350Nm 2.0-litre turbo fourcylinder petrol unit that is as wonderfully slick and refined as the transmission. Around town the two operate in an effortlessly seamless fashion, but it is out on the open road where things become truly effortless – the diesel-like torque peaks at just 2000rpm and hangs around at that peak until 5400rpm, meaning acceleration is strongly insistent right across that range.
So does that massive [SARCASM] increase in ride height affect the handling?
Nope, but then even the Sportline focuses way more on comfort than razor-sharp handling and is far from being the most dynamic thing in Skoda’s lineup anyway.
But what the Superb Scout is is simply incredibly comfortable. It lopes along the open road with a cosseting grace to its ride, surfing that fat torque curve to effortlessly (there’s that word again) cover distances both small and large.
The leather and Alcantara seats are comfortably supportive and offer up an excellent driving position, while the interior itself is wonderfully well laid out, beautifully built and made from impressively high-quality materials. Seriously, if Skoda up their interior game much further it won’t simply be a case of asking ‘‘why would you buy a VW?’’, you will have to start questioning the value of Audi ownership . . .
So does the Superb still live up to Skoda’s ‘simply clever’ subtitle?
You’re kidding, right? It is literally the car that defined that statement in the first place, and continues to do so.
Of course it comes with all the clever little features that Skoda prides itself on – the umbrella in the door, the removable boot light/ torch, the ice scraper secreted in the fuel filler door and all – but one of the Superb’s cleverest tricks is all that remarkable interior space.
And it isn’t just the utterly massive boot or the incredible rear leg room either – the sense of space around the front seat passengers adds massively to the feeling that the Superb is a high-end luxury car playing at being something far more egalitarian. Which is undoubtedly its cleverest trick of all.
Any other cars to consider?
While the Superb Scout’s SUVbaiting styling suggests a wide pool of possible competitors in both the SUV and wagon segments, let’s just focus on other raised-up SUV-lite style wagons, shall we?
The expansion of parentcompany Volkswagen’s SUV lineup has seen the demise of the Passat Alltrack in New Zealand, but there is still the Audi A6 Allroad in the inhouse competition. Except it costs a LOT more ($134,900) than the Superb Scout, although it does come with a 257kW 3.0-litre V6.
Likewise Volvo’s stunningly sexy V90 Cross Country is more expensive at $98,900 and offers a lesspowerful, but torquier 173kW/ 480Nm 2.0-litre diesel four-cylinder engine.
Closer to the Skoda’s price is the cheaper ($59,990) Subaru Outback 3.6, with its 191kW/350Nm horizontally-opposed six, while the soon-to-be-deceased Holden Commodore Tourer is even less SUV-like and, at $67,490, more expensive, but does pack a 235kW/ 381Nm 3.6-litre V6.
None, however, match the Superb Scout’s huge interior space and sheer value for money.