Skoda Octavia RS 230 review, test drive

Oh Skoda, you terrible tease. This whole  ‘will we-won’t we’ charade behind the new Octavia RS just has to stop. I mean, if you aren’t going to bring the latest version of your sporty liftback to India, why is this the second time you’ve brought us overseas to drive it? Sure, I know the official statement is ‘a 50:50 chance’ and I understand that the stratospheric homologation costs for the new, high-strung 2.0-litre turbo-petrol motor, since it won’t be used in any other Skoda cars, would make a difficult business case of this low-volume performance car, but level with us; it’s coming, right? Right?

There are two reasons why I’m really keen for the RS to return to India in its latest avatar. For one, it’s earned itself somewhat of a cult following here. The first Octavia in 2002 – solid, European and relatively affordable – came in and shattered our perceptions of what an executive sedan could be. And then they brought in the RS version, which shattered them all over again. It introduced mainstream India to high-tech turbo-petrol engines, a trend that’s only now really gathering steam. Imagine someone feeling 148bhp whack them in the small of their back for the first time. Sure, we had ‘sport’ versions of a handful of cars then – the Honda City VTEC and Fiat Palio 1.6 to name two – but here was a car with sports suspension and a proper body kit thrown into the mix too. The second RS – the Laura – was a bit of a cheat job, even Skoda will admit. It had the body kit and the suspension, but the engine was the same 158bhp 1.8 TSI as the standard car; again to save the cost of importing the new, 197bhp 2.0 TSI motor. But still, enthusiasts just loved it.

The other reason I think the new RS just has to come to India is because I’ve just spent the afternoon hammering it around the Slovakia Ring circuit just outside Bratislava. Shapur managed to get a feel of the car on the road earlier this year, but today, the focus was purely on performance. And while he drove the standard Octavia RS, I’ve been around in the new, more potent RS 230 – the fastest car Skoda has ever built. Okay, on paper, it just has 10bhp more than the regular car with the same 35.7kgm of torque, and even the visual differentiators are restricted to new alloy wheels and a few black accents. Two things help it feel a little more special than the already special RS. There’s the new exhaust, which uses almost straight pipes, and while this is no chest-thumping V8, it does have a nice underlying growl to it. The other thing is the new electronic torque-vectoring front differential that Skoda calls VAQ, and boy, does it make a huge difference.