This morning I had a test drive in the Fabia vRS. Details of the car here: www.skodasnewtoy.co.uk. I was pretty impressed, lots of room inside, better handling that my Clio however it was easy to tell that it's a 1200kg car rather than a 950kg car. The straight-line acceleration didn't actually seem as good as the Seat Cordoba I drove last week. This could have been because the Fabia had only 20 miles on the clock when I picked it up, the Codoba was over 5000, or maybe the gearing is different. It didn't seem as eager to move in 4th as the Codoba did. Maybe it would improve with age.

The car seems pretty well built but the interior dash is made of cheap hard plastic. The leather on the steering wheel is nice and soft but twice a pressed the horn by accident. Seats are excellent.

At the end of the day it's a lot better than my Clio but how does it stack up against other cars for the same money? Anything petrol with similarly interesting performance is going return 35-40 mpg rather than 50+mpg, be a higher insurance group and depreciate faster. Other diesels are either a good bit slower (the 100/110bhp units from VAG/PSA) or more expensive (Ibiza, Leon, Golf, A3). So the Skoda Fabia vRS does hold the high ground.

Edit: Photos added.

Firstly... yes you do notice the weight difference between the Clio and the Fabia. the handling is better on motorway and round town than the clio. but after a few trips to wales, the clio is muuuch more fun and "compliant" to hoon around. its easy to place it on the road.

The TDi engines take ages to bed in, and it does get much much better, 4th is my favorite gear.. will take you from 30 to just shy of a ton very quickly

Also, regarding fuel consumption, i struggled to get over 40mpg from my 1.2 clio, i get a 49mpg average from the Fabia, that includes thrashing it about.

and when comparing with other cars.. you have to bear in mind that the paper figures dont do the car justice...

The Fabia vRS is an excellent car and you will be hard pushed to find an alternative at such a good price. However, there is the new Seat Ibiza FR which is about to be launched in this country and its a 150bhp 1.8T. Very reliable engine and highly tunable, as all the Octavia vRS driver know.

Its gonna cost aorund

Fuel consumption is probably one of the best points with the Fabia - after driving the Octy for the past four days I've realised how cheap the Furby is to run.

Can't say I've ever had a problem pressing the horn by accident - in fact compared to the Colt I had before you really have to give the horn a hard push to set it off.

However, there is the new Seat Ibiza FR which is about to be launched in this country and its a 150bhp 1.8T.

Its gonna cost aorund

You can easily get the Fabia vRS over the 150bhp mark and improve on the mpg at the same time. With comparable cars for the money, the main competitors are the Ford StreetKa(ck), which has the same 0-60, and is a 1.6 petrol, or the SEAT Ibiza tdi sport, which has the same engine as the Fabia but looks like a semi lowered standard SEAT, is worse specced and costs

Raises and intersting point. If SEAT can get a 1.8T and VW are sticking it in their car surely Skoda could get it too?

Regarding the observation about the Corboda feeling quicker, my mate had a test drive of a Corboda while he was waiting for the Ibiza TDI to be available to test drive, and he said the Corboda had a few miles on it, but the Ibiza had hardly any miles on, and he said that the Ibiza did feel a bit tighter and slower at that point than the Corboda, but the dealer told him that the engine needs a good few thousand on it before it begins to reach its best.