New Skoda Rapid disappoints from the word go

This reviewing business being the subjective thing it is, you occasionally come across cars which either please you greatly on your initial encounter or, as is often also the case, cars which leave you stone cold right from the get-go.

The ?Skoda Rapid, I’m sad to say, is one of the latter and from the moment I stepped into one, I was aghast that one of my favourite car companies had produced something so uncharacteristically naff. ?Skoda has for years, after all, been making hearty meals from the crumbs off the VW masters’ table.

It has to be admitted, of course, that you could hardly get a better table from which to forage crumbs, but that’s where the Czech outfit has been since it was consumed by the German behemoth. But it has shown an innate ability to be able to mine gems from seemingly spent seams.