The Horse spookes the Rattlesnake this time around. Review on Skoda Superb

I have taken quite a liking to this time of Recession. Ofcourse, it has its adverse effects on the economy and also inadvertently on the quantum of money being spent on items of daily necessities. But it also has another slight 'pampering' effect on prospective buyers of luxury products who are just vetting them with an intention of buying them later.

I called up the Skoda Dealership some days ago and told them that I was interested in the Skoda Octavia Tdi and would like a test drive of the car along with the pricelist. The nice receptionist at the other end took down my address and phone number and says “Sir, we have a Superb in your vicinity right now out for a test drive. Would you like to have a go at it?”. I went “huh” (The Octavia is 10-12 lakh, the Laura is 15-19 lakhs, the Superb is 25 lakhs). Does she really expect me to somehow magically increase my budget by 2.5 times and buy the Superb?. “Sure” I said "okay, gaadi bhej do”.

I walked around for 15 min and played with Moju till the time the car came over. And when it did, I was stunned, to say the least. It was huge, a mammoth of a car. I walked around it twice slowly inspecting the car and its intricate design philosophy of simple highly-defined strong clean lines. I ran my fingers over the sharp wedges of the engine compartment and traced them right through to the back of the car where the rear bumper met the sturdy chassis. “Hmmm”, I thought “she’s beautiful”.

Lets see what’s shes got under the hood. The car had a 2.0 litre Turbocharged unit which produced 140 bhp (i would have sold my soul for the 3.5 litre V6 unit). I motioned for the keys. The sales executives, a guy and a girl, asked me if I was familiar with the driving style of the DSG gearbox. I nodded in affirmitive. Just as I was getting into the car, I heard a squeal of delight, “Ooooooooooh, what a cute doggy”! “No Way!” I thought “Just what I need”.

So I sat around in the car inspecting the dashboard and the DSG gearbox for a couple of min then peered outside, but that girl was still “talking” to Moju. So I told the guy “hey, why don’t you hop in”. Let your colleague play with him, we’ll be back soon. But he was slightly hesistant. So I tapped onto the shoulder of the kneeling girl and said “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’m getting late for an already scheduled appointment and would like to take a test drive right now!”  In the middle of all this confusion, Moju jumps into the front seat of the car and into the drivers seat. Shocked! I shoo him back out. The girl, Preeti (I read her name on the ID card hanging around her neck) says “ooh, why don’t we take him with us”. “Are you crazy” I said “Those are genuine leather seat covers costing atleast 40 thousand bucks. His muddy paws will soil them.” I looked on amazed, but this girl slid in the back seat with Moju in her lap. I shrugged my shoulders and we drove off.

The DSG gearbox is an absolute marvel. For people who are unfamiliar with this gearbox, here is a 101 on DSG. As opposed to a conventional gearbox (a synromesh tranny), a DSG gearbox has 2 clutches. One for odd gears (1, 3 5) and one for the even gears (2, 4, 6). When I shift up or down, the clutch which was already in play (either the odd or the even) gets dislodged, but before it does, the other clutch selects the next gear automatically so that, I never am basically, out of power. If I’m shifiting to 3rd gear from the 2nd, when I shift up, the 2nd gear is dislodged, but the 3rd gear is already selected by the other clutch and so I have instantaneous power delivery. Moreover the gearbox also came with a Man-O-matic shift (as in the Lancer 1.8 Invex) and also paddle shifts (as in the Honda Civic). It also had a conventional automatic gearbox. And plus a Sport mode which gave me additional revs to play around with in every gear.

"So far so good" I thought, I put on the Radio and started listening to the latest “Twist Twist” song. I acclimatized myself to the hard but perfectly-servoed steering wheel and the heavy suspension. Coupled with the superb chassis and amazing gear ratios, by the end of 5 kilometres, I felt as sure footed in the car as a mountain goat in the hills. The guy besides me was continually telling me about the various safety features in the car, namely, ABS, EBD, TCS, 8 airbags including curtain airbags and I was simply overwhelemed by the amount of gadgetry which went into making it one of the safest cars ever. I sneaked a look in the rear view mirror and saw Moju sitting on the girls lap.

He looked at me and gave me a grin which said “hey, you have a new cushy comfortable car to sit in and I have a new cushy comfortable lap to sit on. Too bad we cant exchange places”. So with a view to get Moju off the girls lap, I stepped on the heavy duty brake (which had an air brake like feel), and the car, with its large 240-320 mm disc brakes on all 4 wheels, just sank into the road at almost the same spot where I had hit the brakes. “Mind blowing” I thought". I took a peep at the back and saw that the girl had wrapped her arms around Moju tightly when I had braked, so that he didn’t fall off from her lap :(

After fiddling around with the conventional gearbox and the man-o-matic one (Tiptronic - Skoda Speak) I wanted to engage Sport Mode. So I told the guy besides me to hang on and grappled around with the lever trying to shift it from D to S and stepped on the accelerator. Even with the car windows rolled up and the the AC on I could still hear the subdued roar of the 140 bhp engine growling like a tiger who had just been given the stick! The road I was driving on was pretty wide and quite empty as well.

I was cruising at a speed of 130 kilometres per hour when suddenly an Indica swerved in from a side road. So after making sure that his line and front wheel were linear corresponding to the straight road, I moved to the left, engaged Sport mode once more, stomped on the accelerator, and hit full revs on 4th gear (even after accounting for the extra revs in S mode) and then shifted to 5th and completed an overtaking maneuver even Lewis Hamiton would have been proud of. The Sport mode gave me a heady (and even giddy) feeling of increasing G forces and I felt like I was strapped back into my seat and couldn’t move forward even if I pulled on the steering wheel for leverage.

Slowly entering my locality again, I checked the electric sunroof,  the automatic rain sensing wipers and the bi-xenon headlamps which turn itself (in the same direction in which you turn the steering wheel-for better visibility during cornering). I reached home, parked, alighted from the car and shook hands with the sales executives and said “I really don’t think I have the budget for this car. I just thought I’d take a test ride of it since you were in the vicinity. "No problem sir", the girl said "the receiptionist at the showroom already told us that you were interested in the Octavia". "Umm sir" she continued while looking at Moju "when should I come back with the Octavia for the test drive?"