Why we ran it: Rational brand makes its most rational car to date: a seven-seat family SUV. Can it score what’s surely an open goal?
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Life with an Skoda Kodiaq: Month 12
What flaws or virtues emerge when you throw real life and a family at this seven seat SUV for a year and 12,000 miles? - 11th July 2018
The people have spoken. Now there’s a phrase that has been thrust into our lives over the past two years and it has the power to excite or chill depending on your political leanings.
But before you put pen to paper, in this instance I’m referring to nothing more emotive than the inexorable rise of the SUV, increasingly the car-buying public’s champion and consequently available in more shapes and sizes than ever before.
Now car enthusiasts – and that’s what we consider readers of this website to be – have every reason to raise an eyebrow. There’s a reasonable argument that few to none of the modern breed of SUVs have anything about them to make them must-haves.
If you’re a glass-half-empty type, it’s easy to conclude that the raised ride height compromises dynamics, adds weight and reduces efficiency. Oh, and increases the price over the equivalent hatch.
And yet, after 12 months and nigh-on 12,000 miles at the wheel of the Skoda Kodiaq, I have to conclude that there is something quite magical about cruising around, sat above most (for now) of the traffic, unintimidated by buses or lorries, kids occupied by being able to look above and beyond the traffic and – in this fine example of the breed at least – slide in and out and sit in armchair-like comfort all the while.
It’ll come as little surprise to you to learn that the moment the Kodiaq’s place in the car universe truly clicked was when editor-in-chief Steve Cropley borrowed it for a week. He came back several hundred miles later impressed and observed that it was the car that could forgive all enthusiasts for any other vehicles they have in their garage.
In other words, own a Kodiaq, a car that can do everything well, and nobody, not even the most ardent critic of cars, could make a practical argument against whatever else you may want to buy, be it a Caterham, a classic or something in between.
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