Skoda Octavia vRS Estate (Mk4) Fast Fleet test – living with the practical performance estate

Maybe King Charles has a Yeti in his past. Perhaps the Queen kept a Favorit for running around Sandringham. I like to think the Duke of Edinburgh was banging his fist on the Chippendale in frustration when he heard the news of McRae and Grist’s clutch problems in the Fabia WRC with just three stages to go in Australia in 2005. But probably not.

However, even without anything less tenuous than a few royal visits to the Czech Republic, I’m glad Skoda found an excuse to release Royal Green Metallic as a celebratory coronation colour option. It costs an extra £390 on the vRS Estate, but what a shade it is; positively transformative.

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Skodas haven’t been ugly ducklings in recent years, but I’d be surprised to hear that anyone had bought one because they thought ‘phwoar’. I’ve recommended Superbs and Karoqs to friends and acquaintances on numerous occasions (they’ve all ignored me, obviously), but I recommended them because of qualities such as spaciousness, comfort, decent dynamics and extraordinary value for money, not because I thought they were podium contenders for a Vogue cover shoot.

But in the weeks after KY73 YPV rocked up on the driveway I kept sneaking glances. I’d touch a door handle to lock the car, walk a few steps and look back. Then a few weeks into custodianship I was driving back after a shoot, keen to get home. But the setting sun was turning the sky soft shades of peach and I had my camera with me. My desire to take some photos of a dark green Skoda estate at sunset overrode all other concerns. And I’m glad I did, because it looked chuffing handsome. I think there is something about the design of the rear three-quarter that is quite BMW-ish and the 19-inch Altair wheels have a hint of Lamborghini about them.

Inside, things are impressive too. There’s some carbonfibre that doesn’t look naff, and a big touchscreen, obviously, but there are also plenty of physical buttons, including on the steering wheel. The seats both look and feel a bit flat in this pre-facelift car, which is a shame, but they are heated (as is the steering wheel, but that’s part of the £525 Winter Pack), which I’ve appreciated on frosty early mornings.

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As standard it came with such things as adaptive cruise control and full LED matrix headlights, but there are some other options that hoisted the price from the vRS’s previous base of £37,785 to this car’s £43,285. These include a head-up display (£755), blind-spot detection (£550), the Simply Clever Pack (which gives you a double-sided boot floor, a media holder and a waste bin for £110), a space-saver spare wheel (£200), wireless charging (£360) and a panoramic sunroof (£1590). Of most interest in these pages, however, is the addition of Dynamic Chassis Control for £1020.

Arriving as it did with just tens of miles on the odometer, I was careful to run-in the 2-litre TSI for the first 1000 miles and not unleash the full 242bhp and 273lb ft of torque too early. Left in Comfort or Normal modes and leaving the seven-speed DSG to shuffle ratios with the unobtrusive ease of the late Queen Mother preparing a deck for Wednesday-morning Whist, it’s mostly felt more than happy to play the undemanding everyday wagon. A little more road noise than I would have expected at motorway speeds and a sometimes surprising shortage of traction pulling out of junctions have been the only shell in the kedgeree so far, leading me to wonder if swapping the Bridgestone S005 rubber might be a good idea. I hear Princess Anne always favoured Pirellis.

This story was first featured in evo issue 321.