Not as nice as the Seat Leon Cupra. (Skoda Octavia 1.8l 20V Turbo RS)

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Product:	Skoda Octavia 1.8l 20V Turbo RS
Date:	04/07/01 (4692 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, fast

Disadvantages: Interior, looks

If you are reading this, you probably know that this new model is very similar, mechanically, to the Seat Leon Cupra (and other VW Group cars). A comment on my Dooyoo Opinion about the Seat suggested I should look at the Octavia RS – so I did, and this is the result. But before you read on, be aware that you won’t find any comments about driving the car or its handling – we went to see it and didn’t even like it enough to ask for a test drive. Let me be quite clear and unapologetic here: this Dooyoo opinion is written without me having even driven the car, and that is intentional.

In a nutshell, its cheaper than the Seat – and it shows, mainly on the inside.

The seats are half black leather, half an unusual silvery woven-look fabric. Distinctive and unusual; my wife hated it. The leather is nice, but unless the fabric is incredibly wipable, it will look dirty and tatty really soon. And there is NO option – that is the only interior trim available. The plus side is, of course, that this “leather” treatment is standard, whereas in the Seat it’s a £1,400 option which includes (until Summer 2001) electric memory seats. But the killer is that the seats are uncomfortable, at least for my wife. There may be (I am not sure) something strange about the way they are put together which limits foot space for the rear passengers too – a sort of bar along the base.

The drivers’ dials are spiffy – brushed metal, and a really “designed” look makes them nice, for the driver. Full marks to Skoda for trying hard and doing something “different” here, even though some observers hate them. But the rest of the dash is awful – large unbroken expanse of featureless black plastic. Much less attractive than the Seat, and with fewer ventilation outlets and things (I think). The same applies to the doors, which are less well designed inside, not nearly as
nice as the Seat’s. This is not a car to enjoy being inside.

And I was astonished to learn that there is no option for a sunroof. According to the dealer, this is because “the roof is reinforced…” … unique. Can this be true?

The car is bigger than its Seat cousin, and it looks totally different. The boot is bigger, definitely. I think there may be a little more legroom at the back (though this is at the cost of a couple of strengthening bars added, visibly, between the back seats and the boot – these bars will lessen the usefulness of the boot when the back seats are down), and the headroom felt about the same.

Looks-wise, though, the two cars are amazingly different. If you want to look at the RS on the web, forget Skoda’s web-site. At time of writing (May 2001) it’s a wipe-out; it simply does not show the RS. Go instead to, for example, to the French site http://www.wawawoum.com/magazine/20000914/skoda/oc tavia_2001/index.htm, and for two really good pictures click on the third thumbnail at top left and second picture down in the middle of the page (these two lovely photos appear on lots of other sites too). Impressive pics, which to my personal taste make the car look better than it is in the steel. In reality, I feel the Octavia RS looks like a very “boring” and old-fashioned basic 3-box design which has been “dressed up” with boy-racer parts. So, you have a big spoiler, fantastic big alloy wheels with low profile tyres, showy bright green brakes showing through the alloys, side skirts and so on. It totally lacks distinction, looking instead like a cheap racer (my personal opinion all this, tastes differ!). The Seat Leon Cupra looks rather refined by comparison; and it is based on an altogether slicker, more modern, more curvaceous body treatment, with narrow headlight fairings.

Of course, if you really MUST have a built in car-park-ticket-hol
der (a small springy piece of plastic attached to the windscreen surround!) this is the car for you. Fine, so long as you don’t want a cup holder.

There we are. My wife actually wouldn’t let me buy one, even if I wanted to. I daresay it drives as well as a Cupra - maybe even better - but I didn’t bother to find out. We actually went and bought the Seat in the end. Has anyone out there tried both?

Summary: