German magazine Der Spiegel issued a very complementary article on Skoda last week.

I have put a scan online here: http://www.daniil.dds.nl/skoda/derspiegel.jpg

The headline says:

High performance for low wages

And then the lead goes like this:

The new Skoda Octavia is as big as any midrange saloon and costs less than a Golf. Is the Czech VW subsidiary building the better people's cars?

The article goes on to answer that with a resounding yes.

Just to recap the highlights:

- Skoda CEO Kulhanek bluntly says that the new Octavia is bigger, better and cheaper than the new Astra

- despite strikes that upped the wages with 5% last year, Czech workforce is still very cheap, with an average monthly pay of 740 euros

- there is increasing pressure to raise wages as the Skoda workers know their performance is topping that of most VAG factories

- build quality at Mlada Boleslav is only equalled by the specialized A8 factory at Neckarsulm

- among the VAG brands, Skoda continues to come out on top in customer satisfaction and reliability surveys across the world

- German market share continues to rise steeply, while VW is trying hard not to slip away

- the main defectors to Skoda come from three major manufacturers of value-for-money cars: Opel, Ford and Fiat

- until now, Skoda's new customers have come from outside the VAG group, which neatly fits into the VAG strategy

- with the Octavia becoming increasingly well-known for being a better Golf, this strategy is beginning to show its first cracks

- the new Octavia will only make this worse: its interior is much better looking than that of the Golf Mk5, most of the equipment is identical, Skoda will now even offer the innovative DSG auto box, while the engines will also be the same as in the new Golf

- in all it's very hard to find any argument in favour of the Golf: the Octavia costs less, performs equally, uses the same technical components, offers the same quality and has a much larger boot to boot

- R&D chief Ludanek thinks the Octavia driver is a typical bang-for-bucks customer, which, according to Der Spiegel, is something which increasingly can't be said of VW...

contraversial, but true.......