Skoda Kodiaq vRS
REPORT 3 £ 42,870 OTR/£47,350 as tested/£526pcm WHY IT’ S HERE It’s TG’s favourite family SUV – but faster. Worth £43,000, though? DRIVER Jack Rix
JR: Ah, Mr Norris, I’ve been expecting you. We can’t put this off any longer… time for the battle of the dad wagons. Give me your best shot, but be warned I’m armed with wet wipes and rusks.
ON: You’ll need them. I’ve been playing this ‘what’s the ultimate dad wagon’ game for five years now and this is the closest I’ve got to perfection. I need a big (but not too big as I live in London), safe car ideally with the option to press a button and have an exciting(ish) drive once I’ve dropped the kids off. So to speak.
JR: Heart-warming image right there. Basically, Seat should have hired you to appear in the brochure is what you’re saying. Except, silly me, this isn’t a Seat, is it… it’s a Cupra. How are you getting on with the whole rebranding, copper accents, tramp-stamp logo thing?
ON: I’m not. At all. What’s getting boring is people just staring at me in traffic with a blank WTF expression, wondering what they are seeing. I assume they’re thinking it’s some sort of tuner kit special and I’m a massive idiot. I usually just sink slowly into my seat, embarrassed. I’m guessing you’re blending into traffic nicely, considering the vRS doesn’t exactly look very sporty.
JR: Yes, like a massive blue chameleon. Can’t remember any admiring glances, except for one very specific occasion – when I drop my daughter off at nursery in it, it’s catnip for the other dads. Must be the combination of the manufacturer (Skoda says “I know good value when I see it”), the size (blimey, I could fit the kids and my bike in there) and the funny little vRS badge (that’ll be something to impress my mates in the pub with). Clearly, at this point, they don’t know how much it costs. If you’re
embarrassed to be seen in yours then that’s game over, surely? Who wants that in their life?
ON: Exactly, but there is a way to solve that problem. Seat makes a Leon Cupra now and instead of the Twattoo (twat tattoo) badge, they’ve a very fetching gold ‘S’ badge on the front. Whack one front and back. Problem solved. What about driving, though? Have you thrown the big Czech bus down a decent road yet?
JR: Yes I have, and it handles… like a Kodiaq, which is fairly tidy, given its heft, but it’s no hot hatch. The twin-turbodiesel engine is bloody superb – torquey, responsive and it does an odd impression of a petrol V8 if you switch on the sound simulator, which I did constantly for the first month, and now it’s permanently off. But here’s what I’ve come to realise: you don’t want this car to handle well and ride like an Elise... you want it to be a big, fast, comfy bus with just enough pizzazz to impress your mates and give the kids something to talk about at school. So go on, then, what’s yours like to drive?
ON: I have to admit, after driving your Skoda back from Wales last month, it was very pleasant on the motorway. But every time I’ve gotten in it since, the fake V8 burble is switched on and it’s just weird, especially when you open the window and you get the rattly diesel too. Switch the Cupra mode on in mine, and at least the pops and crackles are believable. I’ve also realised that I don’t want the full hot-hatch sharpness for my family runabout for 90 per cent of the time. Yours is definitely softer in Comfort than mine, which is very welcome for an old man. What do you make of the interior? I’m glad I’ve got actual buttons to control the systems with.
JR: The fact that the home button on the vRS’s screen is on the opposite side, so you have to lean right over to prod it, isn’t ideal, but few complaints about the quality. The seats are perfect too, and the heated steering wheel – heating steering wheels should be law. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I reckon yours feels cheaper inside, and the central screen is a bit Commodore 64 to my Xbox.
ON: Alright. You’ve got me there. I do like the switchable modes twisty knob in the Ateca, mind. Makes it very easy to knock it into Sport if you suddenly feel the need. I can do it without even looking down, whereas you have to mash a button down near the handbrake. I would’ve overtaken the lorry before you’d even crashed into it.
JR: You are assuming that I actually put the Skoda into Sport...
I don’t, which says it all really. Even so, I love my big comfy Czech bus. Even if it doesn’t live up to the vRS badge, it’s a bloody great car in isolation. Come on, are you saying that as a dad of two you’d have the Poopra over the Kodiaq?
ON: I think I actually would. It’s the perfect size for me, living in London. At times, the Kodiaq felt a good chunk bigger and more unwieldy in back streets. And my back can stand the harder ride, so the ability to switch to a much sharper car is a big bonus for me. I’d have to get a couple of gold ‘S’ badges to replace the Cupra ones, mind.