Skoda Fabia review: One of best cars inthe super-mini class
The roomy, comfortable Skoda Fabia has a ‘premium’, upmarket feel, a good range of tech, and a top speed of 190km/h.
We have often said in these columns that the main trick Škoda sells is that it offers more for less.
That simple marketing ploy has stood Škoda in very good stead down the years and seen incremental growth year-on-year here on the Irish market for many years. The Octavia and the Superb have been excellent examples of this line of working for the Czech outfit.
Both cars are sold in a segment which is bigger than the one they should compete in. In the case of the Octavia, it should really be in the C Segment for small family/compact cars but in reality, it should be in the D Segment for large family/mid-sized cars. With the Superb, it should be in the D Segment, but really sells in the E Segment for executive/full-sized cars.
Both of these cars are based on platforms which should put them into the smaller segments, but Škoda – across its range – has pulled off a Paul Daniels sleight of hand trick to various of its products and this has successfully wooed millions of clients, convinced they are – much as the brand likes to label itself – ‘simply clever.’
In the case of the company’s smallest car, the Fabia, pulling off such a trick is more difficult and Škoda has had to work much harder for its’ market share in the ultra-competitive supermini class in which the car competes.
The reason is that not alone is the Fabia up against a range of opponents such as the Ford Fiesta, Peugeot 208, Opel Corsa, Toyota Yaris and Renault’s Clio amongst others, but it also has to face in-house competition from the Volkswagen Polo, the Audi A1 and the SEAT Ibiza.
Like the latter two, the Fabia is built on the smallest version of the VW Group’s MBQ platform and, as such, there is less latitude for Škoda to play around with when it comes to the size of the thing.
Now, in times past, they sold a lot of estate versions of the Fabia, which gave punters a much bigger car for not much more dosh.
Unfortunately for Škoda, there’s no estate version of the Fabia in this, the fourth iteration of the model which we have seen since it was first introduced in 1999 and so the car will have to rely heavily on the car being different from the pack in other areas.
This time around, therefore, they’ve made the Fabia as big as possible to create one of the roomiest superminis there is, but a lot of the work they’ve done is to make the car feel more ‘premium’ than was previously the case and you can palpably see the benefits.
Much as the exterior styling copies elements of the Octavia design, the interior of the car too reflects elements of the bigger car’s design. Although Škoda has shied away from getting too fancy-dan with stuff like cryptic touch sliders for some controls, instead it has made something which is classy and yet devoid of pointlessness.
Sure there are some scratchy plastics seen here, but in general all the touchpoints feature soft plastic, fabric or metal surfaces and the result is that they achieved their aim of making the car seem more upmarket than might be suspected. The leather steering wheel in the ‘Style’ specification we tried, is a case in point.
You also get ‘Fabia’ lettering on either side of the instrument binnacle which looks nice, but lots of practical stuff like the neat wireless phone charging pad ahead of the gear lever, grippy cup holders and typical Škoda stuff like the ice-scraper cum thread-depth gauge sited in the fuel filler flap and the ubiquitous umbrella hidden in the drivers’ door.
Tech levels are very good and the infotainment system in the tester was well up to class standards with easy connectivity and very straightforward controls.
Room is a little tight in the rear for the leggier passenger, although on the tester the rear seats do fold 60:40 and the car does come equipped with a space-saver spare tyre – something of a rarity these days. And, for the family-oriented buyer, there’s two ISOFIX child seat mounts in the rear and another one in the front.
Under the bonnet, we had a one-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine which outputted a generous 95 bhp, although it is mated to a long-geared five speed box which meant that getting up to speed was not always the liveliest, as reflected by the 10.5 second 0-100 km/h time.
That said, there’s nothing to sneer about when it comes to the top speed of 190 km/h and the car is far from gutless although do you have to thrash it a bit to extract the most from it. On the upside, the factory claims a 5.0 l/100km consumption rate (56.5 mpg), you can more realistically expect in the region of 6.1 l/100km (45.9 mpg).
On the road the Fabia might not quite be as consummate a performer as, say, the Ford Fiesta, but it is very pleasing to live with and will hold its own with anything in the class when it comes to twisty road. The go-karty handling is superior for the class and the ride is very comfortable.
We like small cars here at Examiner Motoring and the Fabia is one of the best in class in terms of practicality and performance. This is a car which is well-built, well thought out, handsome to look at and very comfortable to live with.
In reality, it probably beats both its VW Group stablemates and had a lot in hand over many other rivals. As ever, Škoda simply offers more, for less.
