Skoda Scala
Mileage 6820 List price £18,930 Target Price £16,525 Price as tested £21,085
Test economy 54.3mpg
MY CIRCLE OF friends includes an accountant, a vehicle dynamics engineer, a sound engineer and a motoring journalist. I’m hoping that doesn’t make me the dumb one. But whose opinion would you most value regarding the ride quality of a car?
Really? Wow. Okay, ne, I’ll tell you what Ben thinks about my Skoda Scala.when I went to pick him up from the station recently, it took only a few minutes for him to start complimenting his Czech counterparts’ work.“the ride is smooth as butter and bumps are hardly noticeable,” he said.“it’s hands down the com est and most relaxing low-cost car I’ve been in.” I’d better not tell you who he works for, then.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Ben. Ride and re nement are probably the areas that have sold me most on the Scala; it strikes a remarkably ne balance between suppleness and control.
What’s more, the calibration of the manual gearbox is so well judged that driving without lurching is a subconscious task – the polar opposite of its more expensive Citroën C4 Cactus rival, which I ran last year.the clutch pedal feels natural and linear, with a clearly de ned biting point; without this, you often have to resort to over-revving the engine for fear of stalling, despite it being rather uncouth and not conducive to good fuel economy.
Best of all, though, is how quiet each journey is.“tyre noise is almost non-existent,” Ben said. Indeed, the Scala generated a relatively impressive reading of 69.0db at 70mph in a recent test. My previous car, a Dacia Duster, really used to do my head in during my two-hour morning commute; it recorded a reading of 69.8db.these differences seem small, but given that decibels are a logarithmic rather than linear scale, a difference of just 6db can mean it’s twice as loud.
To put it in simpler terms, Ben has to shout from the rear seat of his dad’s 2007 Skoda Octavia to be heard on the motorway. Progress has clearly been made.