I am writing a feature for Piston Heads on all three generations of the Octavia vRS and would love to hear your opinions on  all three - I have a Mk2 at the moment and previously owned a Mk1. Briskoda.net will of course get an acknowledgement in the feature.

 

I'm interested in which Octavia vRS is currently the best buy in your opinion, which version would you buy to tune and why, and which models (if any) do you feel are destined to become classics? 

 

Many thanks,

 

Guy Baker

This is the only one that should be a classic IMO.

 

 

Octavia was always the best looking in VRS form, especially mk1.

Looks stunning! Is that yours Richard?

 

Guy

I dorgot to post after liking boss's ccomment.

only the wrc should become a classic, as there so few left.

only mistake they made with it imo, was not making it 4wd. Given the limited number buolt they shouldve just said s rew it, its gonna be properly special not just a plaque and some stickers.

Any other models that have special appeal e.g. Limited Editions?

 

And which generation do you feel makes the best base for further tuning?

Potential classic? Only the Mk1 surely.

The Mk2 and Mk3 are good but not classic material in my opinion. It is a similar thing to the VW Golf where only the mk1 stands out as a classic.

Looks stunning! Is that yours Richard?

 

Guy

 

Nope, found on Google!

The diesels are pretty much the engine of choice as there's a lot you can do with them

However the petrol turbo in either 1.8 or 2.0 brought skoda in line with its sisters

I know the best model colour and engine would be a mk2 black magic tfsi

Pieman2, welcome to the forum.

 

It looks like sadly for opinions and posts to assist with a Pistonheads article the biggest Skoda Forum in the whole universe has not appeared to have helped much.

 

Now if you are doing an article on the Mk7 Golf R / 420R, 2015 Audi RS3, BMW M135i or 2016 Ford Focus RS this is the place with many members with opinions and long running threads.

Pieman2, welcome to the forum.

It looks like sadly for opinions and posts to assist with a Pistonheads article the biggest Skoda Forum in the whole universe has not appeared to have helped much.

Now if you are doing an article on the Mk7 Golf R / 420R, 2015 Audi RS3, BMW M135i or 2016 Ford Focus RS this is the place with many members with opinions and long running threads.

George,

Don't forget the many threads /postings on the Fabia vRS mk2. Good and Bad!!

Feel sure that you could right a book,forewarded by Skoda CS UK

Next article for Pistonheads must be for the Fabia

Edited 18 September, 201510 yr by vrskeith

What is posted in Briskoda stays in Briskoda or something like that!

(& Maybe sometime Honest John where it is told like it is 'sometimes'.)

I don't get the numbers of peeps who post about the cars that they don't own, with such authority

Having owned both the mk1 and 2 VRS I preferred the mk1 for a car with character, it also looked good in Yellow, I was also fond of the 1.8t engine as well. the mk2 was a nicer all round car and great with the six speed box, took us to France and back but the mk1 still just had that special something

Many thanks for your comments

Hi Guy.

 

Shame about the lack of responses here – I suspect you might get some more visibility / joy down in the Octavia specific boards rather than in here where things tend to get a little lost. I only just spotted the thread myself!

 

For me, there will only ever be one ‘ultimate’ Octy vRS – the Mk1. I test drove a number of Mk1 and Mk2 when I got mine. Objectively, the Mk2 is the better car in pretty much every way. But for me personally it suffers the same issue as most ‘modern’ cars – the need to engineer ‘refinement’ into it means that the fun gets taken out. Yes, it’s fast, but am I doing 50? 80? 120? There’s barely any perceptible difference. And if I want that effect, I’ll take out the wife’s Mazda 3. Slow as hell, but if you ignore the acceleration it’s exactly the same. Most modern cars are the same – a raw mechanical machine digitised until they are little more than an iPod with wheels.

 

I think of the early / mid naughties as a period that was the peak of auto design in so many ways. As far as I’m concerned BMW are still yet to make a car to match the e39 M5. With a Mk1 vRS, it’s not the last word in driver involvement – don’t expect a Caterham – but it’s a proper car. Everything that happens on the road is communicated to you as you drive. You can feel exactly what the car and its components are doing at all times – but there’s enough ‘stuff’ added to make it easy to live with every day. With the Mk2 and on, yes the handling is better and the engine is smoother but that mechanical involvement is gone and that’s why the Mk1 remains the better car. You can now buy one for under £2,000 (under £3,000 for a mint one) – so why wouldn’t you? A good Mk2 can’t be had for less than £6,000. Mk1 looks purposeful - Mk2 looks like a Mk1 that ate all the pies and then melted in the sun a bit.

 

I have no experience of the Mk3, but I suspect it would only provide an amplified version of my thoughts on the Mk2.

Mod wise, an air filter and a simple stage 1 remap will see up to 220bhp, which is more than a standard Mk2 (and 3!). Otherwise, the VAG 1.8t is so well known and such a reliable old lump that everything on the planet has been done before, is well tested and can easily be bought off the shelf. As long as the ‘weaker’ internals get dealt with before you head towards 300bhp then the sky is the limit really, with turbo conversions etc going much higher – one does have to wonder though if going that high in an fwd car is wise. Perhaps better looking at an Octy 4x4? Before looking at power though, the handling needs looking at. A RARB transforms the car into what it should have been from the factory, and because the platform is so well used various bits of Cupra R, S3 and TT bolt straight on to the front end to make it turn in massively better.

 

Regards to classic status…

Let me tell you a little story. It’s the late 90’s. Skoda is the butt of all jokes, and perhaps rightfully so. VW have bought them out and invested heavily – now they need a product to reinvigorate the brand. Enter the Octavia stage left. It had to be good – there was a lot riding on it – and it was. This was the era of ‘Oh no, another great Skoda’ and ‘It’s a Skoda, honest’. Taxi Drivers loved it, but Skoda needed the halo car to complete the package and that’s where the vRS came in. It was fast, but it was also huge. It appealed to a totally different type of buyer to the fast hatch lad – that of the understated but quicker than you Dad with lots of stuff to move about. It went rallying, and although it was never that successful it looked amazing and ran alongside the Impreza, Evo, Focus, 206 and Xsara in what has been the best era of the WRC since Group B. Genuine pedigree!

 

The thing was a genuine bargain as well. You could get one new for £14k, maybe £12k with a good haggle. Leon Cupra R? £18k+. An equivalent (but still 150bhp) Golf GTi? An eye watering £20k. Audi S3? Probably better you don’t ask.  None of these offered up the load space of the Octavia and all pretty much only matched or just edged it for everything else. Because the badge didn’t have the snobs quivering though they only sold just over 4,000 in the UK. 4,000. Between the Petrol and Diesel Mk2 variants, there are well over 10,000 around – and Skoda is no longer either cheap or a laughing stock. But why is that the case? Because of the Mk1. The car that turned the company around. Driven by the vRS and all those undercover policeman.

 

Nearly a third of those are now gone, poof, scrapped, gone. Because they often fetch peanuts, increasingly now when something does go wrong they go straight to the scrap heap as nobody can be bothered to fix them up. The ones that hang around in good nick? Yeah there’s an outside chance of classic status but I’m not banking on it. The WRC special edition was an own goal, it should have been 4wd and more like the RS was to the Focus – but it’s the only one with a real shot.