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CAP Blog > CAP Blog > Martin's Blog
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Feb
11
Written by:
Martin Ward
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
 Most other manufacturers have been creative and imaginative with the naming and badging of their ‘green’ cars. Ford have ‘ECOnetic’, Vauxhall have ‘ECOflex’, BMW have ‘Efficient Dynamics’, Peugeot have ‘BlueLion’, Mercedes have ‘BlueEFFICIENCY’, Seat have ‘Ecomotive’, Volkswagen have ‘BlueMotion’, Mazda have ‘i-stop’ and so on. All of these are new names and all are effective. Skoda though has revamped an old name and one I remember well as Greenline was a bus company that used old routemasters. Greenline is also a large taxi company in Leeds who incidentally have many Skoda models on their fleet. It seems that not much thought was put into the name by the people in the Czech Republic but does the name matter? It is certainly now recognisable though in my mind it still conjures up that big old green bus.
 The Superb certainly is a big bus; in fact it is huge. The rear leg room capacity is almost the same as you would find in a BMW 7 Series LWB; you really can stretch out. The length of the car though is no different to any of its closest competitors such as the Ford Mondeo or Vauxhall Insignia.
 The interior quality is much like the cars name, Superb. The fit and finish and attention to detail is as good as some premium manufacturers. There are some very nice ambient lights scattered around the car that can only be appreciated at night. The only distracting aspect of the interior was a small amount of reflection from the dials of the speedo and rev counter on to the windscreen. The materials used and the haptics are all better than you would expect for the price of this car.
The Greenline is powered by a 1.9 litre TDI PD diesel engine with DPF which is used on many other Volkswagen Group products. It develops 105bhp and goes from 0-62mph in 12.5 seconds which for the size of the car sounds to be under powered and too slow but after having driven it quite extensively; in reality it is more than adequate. There is a big gap between fourth and fifth gear and you need to have enough rev’s to be able to change up, if not you can lose the momentum but once on the motorway at 70mph in top gear, it is very quiet and the rev counter is down at 1,900 rpm which is extremely good.
 The Greenline model has been designed to keep running costs down. It has lowered suspension to help aerodynamics, higher gear ratios and a boot spoiler; this all helps with fuel consumption. The official combined figures are 55.4mpg but on a journey this week to Poole in Dorset it achieved a staggering 55.9mpg. Around town it achieved around 43mpg, according to the on-board computer. If you were to maintain around 55mph on the motorway (which I’m sure would annoy every other motorist) you could easily get over 65mpg.
The Superb is extremely comfortable and is one of those cars you could sit in mile after mile in complete luxury, both in the front and particularly in the back. It is really well equipped with the list being too long to mention but at a price of £16,880 on the road, it does look to be good value.
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