Simple things done well

Skoda Octavia — “it does what it says on the tin”

Recently, for the first time in several years, I once again became a car owner. Much though I love high performance and sporting cars, this time I was more pragmatic.

I do love high-performance cars, so I did for research a Maserati. Hey, for my budget I could have bought a ~10-year-old Maserati Quattroporte, a stunningly beautiful Italian sports saloon with an exhaust note that is so, so exciting to the ears and heart. However, I had a vision of taking a long trip with passengers (one of the things I am buying a car for) and I would have been worrying all the way along about a breakdown in a Maserati, then “where on earth would I find a Maserati garage within a hundred miles?”, not to mention the eye-watering cost of parts and repairs.

So, being sensible prevailed, I bought a Skoda Octavia. Yes, a Skoda.

In the UK, up until about a decade ago, that was a brand associated with, well, not very good cars. However, owned for some time by the VW/Audi group, at this stage, Skoda cars are basically the same “under the skin” as a Volkswagen or Audi, yet both a) less expensive, and b) sometimes better (eg my car has WAY more boot/trunk storage for trips).

I knew that a Skoda would do what I needed as a someone moving from a city centre to the edge of the suburbs, but it would not be a sporting drive like a BMW can be when you choose…