www.carsuk.net/skoda-missionl-concept-revaled-the-skoda-lauretta-perhaps/
Golf/Focus sized, so smaller than the Octavia, european models will have a hatch. Not quite sure why this is necessary, tbh. If you want something Golf size, buy a Golf.
|
Looks like a cross between a VW Jetta and Audi A4 to me. Not bad looking.
I could have gone for a Golf this time but wanted something bigger. And the Golf GTD 170 was going to cost as much as a Passat CC at the end of the day for me. And was lower spec.
|
|
Lauretta sounds like it should be preceded by the Name Kia, or Chevrolet even.
|
|
Seems to be launched in India next month....The name is reminiscent of the Laurin & Klement models at the start of the last century - so probably a historical tilt...
|
Looks nice, rather German, and this has led me to realise something, since when did Germany start making pretty cars? Most German cars are now quite good looking.
|
|
WHAT ?! - Check out any 1980s 3 Series or an E39.....wow...!
|
They don't do anything for me, they are just cars. I think the first true pretty German car was the NSU RO80. Looks similar to VW's current saloon line up 45 years later!
|
|
a MK1 Golf GTi in red.....?
|
|
Yup, pretty close to the mark there Rattle. I saw a pic of an RO80 the other day and was, after all these years, still impressed. Saw one for sale, too, on a French website. But I wouldn't dare, would I?
|
If I had a lot of spare money, then an R080 would be in my collection. Just a shame they got it wrong with the engines.
I don't find the Golf MK1 that pretty, they are amazing cars for what they were, but I don't get excited by them, where as if I see an original mini or 500 my heart races.
|
|
You're both right - a very "right" looking motor, didn't half look weird when I first clapped eyes on one in my youth...
|
|
Looking at it, the only thing which now looks very old fashioned are the tiny chrome wing mirrors. Make the door handles slightly smaller, change the back light cluster, and I bet you could be fooled into thinking it is a fresh design.
|
>Most German cars are now quite good looking.
Hmmm...I had a prolonged look at the three-quarter view of a Mercedes E coupé and was thinking in terms I'd better not express here. Random lines, swirls and slashes sticking out in all directions - a complete mess. The pleasing portmanteau neologism 'fugly' springs to mind and is probably too kind for it. Passed a new CLS too on the way home - in white. Eww!
Compared to the purposeful fluidity of the last-but-one BMW 5, or the simple rightness of the Mk IV Golf, I'd say German car design is losing its way by trying too hard. The Passat CC is elegant, though; truly striking from a distance in profile, when all you can see is what the designer originally planned.
|
|
Nice car that, meant to say in Unusual Sightings that I saw one the other day - immaculately pretty....
|
>> Golf/Focus sized, so smaller than the Octavia, european models will have a hatch. Not quite
>> sure why this is necessary, tbh. If you want something Golf size, buy a Golf.
>>
But this is cheaper to buy than a Golf with practically all the same underpinnings,
plus it is loads more handsome,
plus a better interior ,
plus better fitted together and more reliable,
plus has a better dealer network in the UK,
plus it will be cheaper to insure, and cheaper to service, and cheaper to fix,
plus it will be more exclusive (rarer on UK roads)
. . . .but apart from that, yes, get a Golf.
I really like this Skoda. It maintains their very high standards.
|
Same could be said of the above of the Octavia as that shares the same platform as the Golf, Touran, Tiguan, Passat etc etc.
It looks to me to be similar to how the first Superb was really a Passat. This is a Jetta. But cheaper.
|
Lauretta?! Wow, that's even better (worse) than the upcoming Joyster. Shame because i bet the car's pretty decent.
The mk1 Octavia is still built and sold in India (alongside the mk2) as the Laura. Wonder if we'll get a better name for it here.
|
|
If I was in the market for a Golf size car, then this would probably be number one on my list, but it does have to be a cheaper than the Golf or Focus, because it has that niche to kill. I suspect it will compete directly with the i20 and Cee'd.
|
|
They wont call it a lauretta when its on sale here, but that looks a handsome piece of kit.
|
The Skoda Kriegsmarine might sell well. Perhaps not!
Still the one thing I have missed in all this, is that is has a Czech badge and it is built there. It is amazing how much Skoda really has come on over the past 15 years, that I now think of it as a German brand built in the Czech Republic rather than a Czech brand.
|
>> Still the one thing I have missed in all this, is that is has a Czech badge and it is built there.
How did you miss that Skoda is Czech and they tend to make them in the Czech Republic :-) But it is a car company benefiting from German engineering for sure. The link to VAG goes back further than 15 years though.
|
>> . . I now think of it as a German brand built in the Czech Republic rather than a Czech brand.
Don't let any Czechs hear you say that! They are fiercely proud of Skoda, and rightly so.
Skoda is as much Czech as Pilsner. The underpinnings may be largely German, but what the Czechs add in terms of quality control, styling, value and their dealer network gives Skoda a distinctive character from the rest of VAG.
|
I've been to Plsen and it looked (at the time) to be a set from a world war 2 movie in places! And getting Pilsener Urquell in a bar in Prague meant you all got different bottles with no labels. This was 1990 mind.
I find it strange how Hyundai build their cars in the Czech Republic. Kia built theirs in Slovakia. Or is it the other way around. Regardless.... wouldn't one plant make more sense? VAG build cars for the group companies in various factories. Some VW's in Spain (SEAT) etc.
|
I guess even in Eastern Europe planning regulations might make it very hard to build factories on a massive scale, hence the need for two smaller ones. They may have existed before the merger of the Hyundai and Kia too.
Nearest I have been is Berlin in early 2007, and even as recently as that I was as amazed at how much communist influences there still where especially Eastern Berlin.
|
>> They may have existed before the merger of the Hyundai and Kia too.
Nope they were built in recent years.
|
I know it is a Czech car company, but because so many of Skodas are now just pure VW I really do just think of them as VWs. It is actually about 20 years since VW owned them, but it wasn't really until they launched the Octavia it showed. The Felicia was still a pure Skoda underneath.
What I meant was when I see a Skoda I just think VAG.
Does a separate Skoda company still exist? Or is it now purely just a brand of VW?
|
Rattle is a Bugatti just a SEAT then? Or a Lamborghini?
They are all VAG companies and have access to engineering etc. The Phaeton only ever existed (some say) to provide the platform for Bentley.
Your argument says that a Veyron or a Gallardo is just a VW?
|
To answer Rattle, I think VAG is split into a few divisions and wiki has the answers.
SEAT is more closely aligned to Audi. Skoda to VW.
|
The difference is VW and Skodas do look very similar, my uncle's Suburb for example is nothing more than a stretched Passat. Where as I assume a Lamborghini does not share its platforms with a Golf.
I think of Alfa's being FIATs in the same way, because of all the platform sharing.
And until recently Saab's where just posh Vauxhalls (or Opals). I am exaggerating because my initial comment has.
|
>> my uncle's Suburb for example is nothing more than a stretched Passat
That is exactly what it is though. VW produced a stretched Passat but never released it in Europe (1999 Volkswagen Passat Lingyu). It was aimed at China. Skoda was allowed to release it in Europe as the Superb. It is a Passat albeit a long-wheelbase one.
Look at newer cars though and there are differences. The more flexible chassis/platform used in the Golf V/VI also underpins the Octavia, Superb II, Passat B6 and B7, Touran, Tiguan... the list goes on. The old platform sharing meant shared wheelbase but it's all more flexible now. The Passat B5/original Superb shared many components with Audi and these had Longitudinal engines too.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 5 Sep 11 at 23:42
|
>>Lauretta?! Wow, that's even better (worse) than the upcoming Joyster<<
Joyster! - no, you're pulling my plonker, Shirley ... Yeti -- Roomster -- Joyster, why can't they come up with a good name, like **Lancer**
:)
|
|
Cos the Japanese already had it !
|
|
I said like Lancer, diddle I ... they could have had Prancer, Chancer, Blancher, Rancher etc., etc.
|
I have always felt there was a void in the Skoda range between Fabia and Octavia.
Also scope for a car smaller than a Fabia as well.
|
|
I don't like the name Fabia either come to that - Octavia's OK though, reminds me of Octavian (Augustus)
|
|
I think it was a name from their archives - possibly post war. They do a lot of that.
|
You've heard of Ships in bottles, well - you can also get Lancers in bottles too ~
www.fullers.co.uk/rte.asp?id=296
:)
|
>> I said like Lancer, diddle I ... they could have had Prancer, Chancer, Blancher, Rancher
>> etc., etc.
>>
Sounds like a bunch of Reindeers!
Hyundai has already bagged Santa . . . . . . . as in "Santa Fe"
|
>>Hyundai has already bagged Santa . . . . . . . as in "Santa Fe"<<
Yule have to do better than that!
|
Skoda - A New Skoda - rtj70
