Check this out as an Italian film team shows off the Superb - surprise, surprise

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_4t1wL0gyI

 

 

@ 1:43 - Is it a Porsche????  

Panamera estate … only with a much-improved look? OK, yes, people’s perceptions can be plain weird.

 

Preconceived notions sit deep: I was hanging around the local Merc dealership yesterday (waiting for yet another problem on SO’s car to be sorted) and started chatting with a fellow waiting owner. He was clearly an educated and certainly very well travelled man. Yet when I responded to his fulsome praise for Merc cars by telling him what I just preferred to spend on a Skoda, he was completely dumbfounded. He wasted no time pointing to cars on the forecourt that I “could have had”. My reply that those cars were “half the car with half the kit” met with further incredulity. I also pointed out that – from good experience – it costs at least double to visit a Merc dealer for a service than it does a Skoda dealer. He wasn’t having any of it. As we here all know, there are still many people who will ignore facts even when they're staring them in the face; all for the sake of a brand / badge.

 

The car in that video is the same colour combination as mine, incidentally. Excellent taste, in other words.

Badge snobs! My L&K is my third Skoda and I think unless Skoda really dropped the ball, I can't see me changing marques anytime soon. Great build quality, great reliability and incredible value for money.

VAG really need the badge snobs now as the s3 is a better looking car than the current A4, couldn't say that about the s2 to be honest, Passat is a great looking car and I was having a serious look but an analogue clock in the middle of the dash? was enough for me to go for a 3rd superb.

The front of the Passat is good but the back end is bland beyond bland, seems they ran out of ideas when they got to the back!

Agree entirely, and also about that awful, awful clock in the middle of the dash. Mind you, the Passat does offer the 240ps diesel - which would probably have been my first choice in the Superb, had it been on offer (having spent some time with the 190 ... sorry, it just isn’t enough :evil: ).

 

Of course, we benefit hugely from other people’s badge snobbery; the carmakers have to make some real money somewhere and from someone ... just not us. How on earth does Fiat survive with just the 500 (and its fat, ugly sister, the 500L) to sell?

 

Incidentally, I just don't get the Superb vs. A4 'comparisons': isn't the A4 smaller (less space) than an Octavia?

I wanted petrol and 4x4 so the VW had nothing for me in the Passat range! a bit shortsighted I think.

Edited 11 February, 201610 yr by philsmith

Agree entirely, and also about that awful, awful clock in the middle of the dash. Mind you, the Passat does offer the 240ps diesel - which would probably have been my first choice in the Superb, had it been on offer (having spent some time with the 190 ... sorry, it just isn’t enough :evil: ).

 

Of course, we benefit hugely from other people’s badge snobbery; the carmakers have to make some real money somewhere and from someone ... just not us. How on earth does Fiat survive with just the 500 (and its fat, ugly sister, the 500L) to sell?

 

Incidentally, I just don't get the Superb vs. A4 'comparisons': isn't the A4 smaller (less space) than an Octavia?

 

 

Agree on the 500L, terrible looking. The straight 500 though...for so long I thought it was typical style over substance, but having driven a few as hire cars now it's without doubt the best small car I've ever driven, and worth the money. Wouldn't buy one (the espresso machine interior isn't my thing!), but I can entirely understand why it's so popular.   And the residuals on them are bonkers!

I take your point about the 500’s qualities – I haven’t driven one. But I wasn’t really questioning that, anyway. My comments were based on the seemingly widely accepted ‘truism’ that small / ‘budget' cars make the manufacturer very little money. So they also badly need to sell larger and/or ‘premium’ cars and hence my assumption that Audi buyers effectively help to pay for our Skodas (and wondering how Fiat manages without that spread).

 

What I perhaps failed to acknowledge is that our L&K+++ models probably also generate a very handsome profit.

From a VAG brand snob point of view, (excluding the big premium brands)  i think now I rate it as:-

 

Audi

VW

Skoda

Seat.

 

However from a build point of view on the flagship models the its a very close call now between Skoda and VW.

Even before I bought a Skoda I would have put it above VW on a snob value.

 

VW = volkswagen= common peoples car, says it all really!

My next door neighbour thought I'd bought a Lexus. When her husband went out to check, he couldn't believe it was a Skoda.

I' m on my third Skoda. Had an Octavia 110 Tdi Elegance estate, an S2 Superb 140 SE estate and now an S3 Superb L&K estate. They just get better.