I live with a Skoda Octavia vRS to find out if it's the ultimate £40k Q-car

In the 1985 John Hughes film Weird Science, two teenage misfits use a supercomputer to create their ideal woman. Different times, ask your dad, etc. Fast-forward 40 years, and if you asked that same machine to spit out a car for where I am in life right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the result looked a lot like the Skoda Octavia vRS.

Perhaps I should clarify that I’m saying this as a middle-aged man with two nearly grown-up kids and a modest household income. If money were no object, I’d be opting for a Porsche 911 S/T, thank you very much. But let me explain why the Skoda wins in the real world.

> How the Skoda vRS Estate passes Henry Catchpole's crucial airport test

Size matters. Not too big, not too small. I need a car that’s practical enough to haul various family members around the country and one that can reliably ferry my youngest to swimming galas, training sessions, and day trips with his mates. So, five doors and a large boot, please.

Although I generally avoid talking boot sizes on these pages – this is evo after all – it’s impossible to ignore here. For a car of its size, the Octavia’s is enormous: well-shaped, deep, and genuinely useful. Meanwhile the cabin is properly spacious too, with generous legroom front and rear.

Back to the swimming child. Most of my weekends are spent battling Range Rovers for spaces in overcrowded car parks with tiny 1970s bays and narrow, kerbed multistorey ramps. It’s no secret that over the past few years cars have been getting bigger. In fact, the average car is growing wider by about a centimetre every two years, according to research by the European Federation for Transport and Environment. Trouble is, most of the UK’s infrastructure didn’t get the memo. And yet somehow, KY74 PKF feels perfectly judged – just narrow enough to squeeze into tight spots, but roomy enough inside that no one’s arguing about who gets to sit where.

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How is it to drive? Luckily our vRS has the optional (£1185) Dynamic Chassis Control, and after a bit of tinkering I’ve settled on the Comfort setting for this with a few tweaks elsewhere as my default configuration. But however you set it up, it’s a really responsive, quick, fun car to drive, as happy on a B-road as it is on a motorway or about town. And at around 33mpg average so far, it’s generous on the wallet without sacrificing performance (261bhp, 0-62mph in 6.4sec).

The only black mark in this supercomputer analogy? Looks. Being a designer (and a fussy one at that), aesthetics matter. Do I gaze at the Octavia wistfully each morning? Not really. In this department it’s not my dream car by any means. But do I look forward to spending time inside it and driving it? One hundred per cent. Absolutely. And for that reason, I’ll take it.

Now, I wonder if Weird Science is on Netflix…

This story was first featured in evo issue 334.

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