Driving home today I got a spur of inspiration as I left a civic Type R to dust to write about how great my Fabia VRS is. I've had it since January brought on a 04 plate, 28,000 miles for £5500 from an independent dealer.....bargain!!! My first impression was wow that’s a lot of pulling power in every gear between 2 and 3 thousand revs but the traction comes on abit early, a couple of things fixed that. Got a new Pair of Nero’s for the front wheels because some numpty decided it would be a good idea to put a pair of budget tyres on my furby. I then decided it was time for a remap, £300 to get the mean red machine close to 200bhp and a ridiculous 310 lbs of torque. Had it done in Bristol by 'southwestincartech' by a decent guy who knew what he was doing. He told me it had already been badly remapped and looked like it was kicking 160bhp but the power was too concentrated in one big spur that it wasn’t running as efficiently as it could. I noticed the increase in power instantly and was a bit worried that all this power doesn’t come at a price, however to this day the standard clutch has shown no sign of weakness but if it does go then it would be a labour of love to have an upgraded clutch fitted. I got the PD160 pipe and trumpet along with a sports air filter and now it’s performing better than ever. I decided that all this power needed to have the ability to stop so I got some ECB brake pads on all fours.

Now the interesting part if you made it this far. As I pulled next to the civic type R, the chavy chick with the fag in her mouth looked at me like a lot of people do when they see my car. They think I don’t care if it says vrs, it’s a Skoda. As the lights turned green I didn’t drop the clutch throwing smoke everywhere for two good reasons. Throwing all that torque onto your clutch is like kicking yourself in the head but more importantly that's not the fabia's style. First Gear is more to be desired so I play to my strengths. As I knew once I’m in second gear at 2500rpm that I would be thrown back into my seat and as I slipped it into third changing way before the red line I realised that the screaming Honda in my rear-view was blushing in shame as it saw the Skoda badge on my boot lid. I checked the average MPG for my journey, a cool 48 around town as I drove past the petrol stations shaking my head in disgust as the fuel prices.

So here it is. I started driving at 17 in my mum’s 998cc micra, then my mum's 100bhp polo tdi and then my first car which was a red 120bhp Saxo VTS. The saxo was fast by many standards despite its chavy reputation but for £1800 I don’t think you could go faster. However I missed the pokey power of the TDI, the effortless, useable speed, the saxo took effort and turned heads. But the Skoda doesn’t give pedestrians a neck ache but an eye ache as they squint to make out the Skoda badge on the boot lid.

Now here's the bad point about the Fabia, I don't know if I will be able to move on because I can't find anything on the market which has the speed, comfort, fuel economy, discreetness without buying something beyond my current means. If I do get a new car it will probably be an octy.

Type R must have been a type S or slower model tarted up cause thats not happening... sorry to pi55 on your chips

and you'll have around 170 ponies

Its do-able to beat a Civic Type R... and so are the 190bhp figures...

The vRS is a great car, sometimes its down to the driver more than the car though.

It was no doubt a Type R. I've timed my 0-60 in 7 seconds so wasnt suprised I beat it off the line. Most likely she didnt boot it as much as she could as im sure the 0-60 time in the type r is faster but its an example how easily usable all the power in the Skoda is used. No dyno run but i reckon its closer to 200 then 170.

Three points

1) Civic Type R was either not trying or being driven by someone who didn't know how to do it well

2) 200bhp = no chance from just a map. 170bhp & decent torque much more likely, maybe 175hp. Stock engine can simply NOT go that far.

3) "I beat ______" threads are generally frowned upon on Briskoda, so I will be keeping an eye on this thread and if it starts to degenerate, I'll be stepping in to delete it. Sorry!

oky doky:D

My remapped (P Torque stage one 181bhp 300lb ft) Fabia VRS is about a whisker quicker than a Cooper S Convertable, not sure how they compare to a Typre.

Type R - 197 bhp, 144 lb/ft, 1204kg, 0-62 - 6.6 secs.

Remapped Fabia vRS - (approx!) 170 bhp, 290 lb/ft, 1312kg, 0-62 - 7 secs.

Can't find any mid-range figures but off the line the Civic would be quicker... third gear plant it the Fabia should be quicker

have you relocated recently? did you drive a 2.0 Fabia before the vRS? sounds like you took the Type-R like a king...:rubchin:

Hmmm, posts like this make me wonder if it's time to change my car

Sorry if that's a bit Grumpy-esque

i agree with the last part. think i would find it hard to move on. i only swap my car to go one better and dont think there is anythin on the road which ticks so many boxes as the fabia does for the same kind of money.

I kept up with a Type R the other day coming back from Warrington. Was a bit of a hill. We got it on vid, once i've found the camera lead i'll wack it on you tube.

And mine isnt even remapped. We had the roof down, and you can hear the type R clearly planted. With a remap i would have been right up its chuff.

sounds like something of the fast and furious your the king of the road........ but there is a big difference between the 2 cars..

I'm sorry, but when are people going to realise a luke-warm diesel hatch is not going to keep up with a type R? Even with one of the magical re-maps which makes turns the fabia into a fire-breathing monster, it would still struggle to beat a Type R. Unless it's a mustang beating 2 litre.

im sorry but when i had a really harsh map on my fabia which eventually snapped the shaft in the turbo! i got mullered by a type R and all it had was a hks exhaust and some lightweight wheels!!

have you relocated recently? did you drive a 2.0 Fabia before the vRS? sounds like you took the Type-R like a king...:rubchin:

Nope the VRS is my first Skoda. Im not saying a type R has less performance then a remapped fabia cause thats just not true....but what mpg does a type r have, what condition is it in after 5/6 years of being ragged and its petrol. The fabia eats hills like theres no tommorow, you can cruise on the motorway and when things do go wrong, its a skoda so should be cheap to fix. Im guessing that what Taxi drivers are banking on. I would like to drive an ibiza diesel cupra to see how it compares.

diesel Ibiza Cupra is basically more of the same; feels faster than it actually is, but under certain circumstances able to pull away from cars that are quicker.

lol I love my skoda because I can drive her at 80 in 3rd gear!!! God bless my little lissy baby