New Skoda Superb given head up on prices

The new Skoda Superb has had its entire 2008 model range priced up, dusted down and are available from behind UK Skoda dealership counters from September in all sorts of individually-tailored specs, with the basic bag costing you a shade under £15k.

Prices get under way at £14,915 to be precise, for which you get the very un-base spec 1.4-litre S model with its TSI petrol engine that comes with a six-speed DIY gearbox and 125bhp as standard. Not to mention seven airbags, Climatic air-con, a CD player with MP3-compatibility, ‘leccy windows and door mirrors and ESP all included in the one hatchback/saloon shaped package.

With a veritable smorgasbord of engine permeations that would make the indecisive weep, you can plump for your new Superb with 1.8-litre, 1.9-litre, 2.0-litre and a mad-as-a-bag-of-squirrels 3.6-litre power plant. Full strength petroleum, economic Pumpe Duse, (pump-a-diesel) oil-burners and for the first time ever on a Superb, the new CR (Common Rail) diesel pod that generates 170bhp and ticks all the boxes marked fuel bill-saving, planet bill-saving and chiropractor bill-saving. (Thanks to a smooth delivery)

Transmissions require thought as well, with VW’s prolific DSG semi-automatic, twin-clutch gearbox turning up in a variety of guises, and for the first time as a seven-speed interpretative choice to make when mated to a 1.8-litre TSI unit. Optional on the 2.0-litre TDI engines with six-speeds, it’s part and parcel of the mechanical furniture on the rip-roaring 3.2-litre range-topping V6 that’s good for 260bhp at full tilt. And as such, the most blood-curdling road-legal Skoda as yet invented. £26,675 if you fancy testing your reaction times.

A couple of 4X4s have also been thrown into the new Superb melting pot to stir things up a little with the upper-medium segment competition, which in fairness, tend to pale into equipment insignificance alone.

With regard trim levels, there’s the three to cast a pensive look over your face. S, SE and Elegance, that afford buyers choices like the following in the mid and top range flavours. In addition to the rudimentary S listings above, the SE grabs fog lights with cornering functionality, Alcantara seats, Acoustic rear parking sensors, Cruise, Dual-zone air-con and integrated 6CD touch screen stereo.

Whereas the Elegance specifications on top of this run to Bi-xenon headlamps with AFS, Rain-sensitive wipers, Colour touch screen sat nav, 18” alloys and GSM III Bluetooth sensibilities at a glance.

And let’s not forget one of the new Superb’s superb USPs.....some people refer to it as a ‘haloon’, others, not as comically-inclined, the ‘Twindoor’. Name confusion aside, it’s Skoda’s nifty alternative take on the noble hatchback tailgate ergonomics. Which give it that saloon car boot opening feel at the touch of a button if you simply wish to post a few smaller items through the Superb’s rear-facing letterbox. If you don’t – and you’ve got your hands full of (recyclable) shopping bags – then you just revert to the normal procedure. And flip the entire back lid. Got that?