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By
EWAN KENNEDY
23 July 2007
Skoda, the Czech car maker, has long been renowned for doing
things differently. So it wasn’t a big surprise when one of their
engineers explained, "We wanted to make our Roomster look like an
aircraft at the front and a house at the back."
On the face of it, a somewhat strange design philosophy, until
we analysed the thinking behind it. People who need to buy compact
people movers often have to make do with a pretty bland looking
vehicle just to gain practicality and interior space. Skoda argued
that it is possible to offer them a vehicle that looks sleek at
the front, but which works well at the rear. So we have the
Roomster.
Using a headline of Roomy Roomster may seem predictable, even
corny, in a story on this new Czech car. But it really does sum up
the small machine beautifully. In a vehicle that’s only 4.2
metres long, Skoda has provided plenty of stretch out interior
space for four big adults. However, it’s relatively narrow, so
three grownups in the rear isn’t really an option.
Three children will work fine, though the division of the seat
into a 40/20/40 per cent arrangement means one of the kids should
ideally be smaller than the others. The window line is
significantly lower at the rear seats than the front, resulting in
huge, side picture windows that let even small children get an
excellent view outside.
Which should significantly slow the onset of the dreaded ‘are-we-there-yet?’
pleas from the back seats…
A clever feature lets you remove the centre-rear seat entirely.
Then you can either have a good sized gap between the two rear
seats or slide them closer together should that meet your needs.
Or leave the centre-rear seat in position and fold down its
backrest to give a small table with built-in padded armrests and
holders for two drink containers.
Other clever interior features are storage drawers beneath the
front seats and a multitude of other stowage areas for sunglasses,
mobile phones and the like.
The boot is huge, much larger than it has any right to be in a
car of this size. A pair of very large suitcases, or a trio of
medium sized ones will be absorbed into the luggage space with
ease. The rear seats can folded down to further increase cargo
space. In the Roomster they can be folded individually, either in
a single motion, or double folded for even more capacity. The
seats can also be completely removed without a great deal of
hassle.
When it comes to Australia in October the Skoda Roomster will
be powered by either a 1.6-litre petrol engine or a 1.9-litre
turbo-diesel. We have sampled both on the roads of the Czech
Republic and found even the small engine has a reasonable amount
of performance. Hills do hinder it and a full load, which we haven’t
tried at this stage, may slow it to an unacceptable amount to some
buyers.
Turbo-diesel performance is much better, with the usual surge
of torque that we love from these engines when you want to climb
long steep hills or overtake in the safest possible distance.
Skoda hasn’t set prices for Australian Roomsters at this stage,
but the turbo-diesel will presumably cost several thousand dollars
more than the petrol.
It’s hard to speculate on prices at this time, and Skoda is
certainly not willing to discuss the matter. Based on prices in
the UK, a market not dissimilar to ours, we would expect the price
list to begin in the mid to high twenty-thousand bracket. But we
will have to wait and see.
Ride comfort is excellent, even on rough roads that are still
showing neglect from the former communist years. As you would
expect from a vehicle that has German Volkswagen influence in its
underpinnings, the Roomster has a solid feel that we really
appreciate.
Handling is pretty good, the steering is generally neutral at
normal to higher-than-average cornering speeds. The added height
of the Skoda over that of a conventional hatchback really doesn’t
noticeably deter the Roomster, and it’s happy to change
direction when asked to do so mid corner.
Compact people movers are a common sight in Europe, but to date
haven’t been a real success in Australia. This clever new
Roomster from Skoda may well change all that. Provided the price
is right, and the marketing guys are able to create public
interest in a marque that’s currently all but unknown at this
stage, there's every reason to expect we will see a lot of these
‘houses with aircraft fronts’ on Australian roads.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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