AIMS: Asian-car buyers in Skoda's sights

Skoda has mounted a new product offensive against Japanese and Korean brands in Australia.

At the Australian International Motor Show in Melbourne last week, Head of Skoda, Matthew Wiesner, announced that the importer's expanding product range — with the new Yeti crossover model and the upcoming Fabia — would light a fire under popular Asian-car brands here.  

"We're basically putting [the Yeti] among the Japanese and the Koreans — and saying to those buyers 'you can buy European cars with Volkswagen drivetrains and all those bits and pieces'..." Wiesner told journalists present for the AIMS media preview.

"Our job is very clear," Wiesner subsequently told motoring.com.au. "We are bringing all this Europeaness that we have here with Skoda and pitching it in among the Japanese and the Koreans..."

Key to that will be the Fabia, which is Skoda's long-awaited VFACTS light segment contender, and newer models to follow in the next few years.

Both Yeti and Fabia take the VW-owned brand in slightly new directions in Australia. The Yeti is a crossover SUV-type vehicle in a similar vein to Nissan's Dualis, but with the added niche-market appeal of a diesel drivetrain and Skoda's acknowledged packaging smarts.

Prices for the Yeti are $28,690 for the front-drive 77 TSI (petrol) variant, rising to $35,690 for the all-wheel drive 103 TDI (diesel). According to Wiesner, other drivetrain variants will be added to the local range in due course.

"I don't know how many times I've been asked when this is coming by [the media]," Wiesner said of the Fabia. "It's now happening. It's now here. RS will join us in the first quarter of 2012, along with wagon variants, but as of now, the 77TSI Fabia hatch will be starting at $18,990 — and our special edition Monte Carlo... from $21,990.

"We are obviously very much looking forward to expansion into the light-car segment..."

Skoda is sourcing the new models from Europe, rather than India, as had been mooted for the Fabia in the past.

"India has potential one day... most definitely," Wiesner explained. "Once they have a right supply network and local component producers that are appropriate for western-type markets... it's not that they're not up to it... it's more that they're bedding it all down."

In the meantime, the Fabia will be built in the Czech Republic for Aussie buyers. Maintaining the company's good name for quality is imperative to tackle the Asian brands on what has been historically their own turf. But Wiesner believes that Skoda doesn't really need to promote its quality as it stands.

"My view is you focus on the absolute positives, because we don't need to make statements about build quality... about reliability" he said. "If you're out there... making statements about some of those points... people sometimes [ask] 'why?'

"If you don't need to do something, why do it?"

The debut of the Fabia and Yeti at AIMS was boosted by the revelation of the importer's new CI (corporate identity), which was launched in Geneva and is now putting in an appearance at local dealerships. Those dealers will increase in number from 22 at the start of this year to 35 by the end of 2011. By 2014, the dealer network will be up to 50 or 55 dealers and that enhanced dealer network will contribute to the company's sales forecast gains of 80 per cent, Wiesner says.

Just to cement Skoda's position in the Australian market, the importer sponsors AFL club, the Greater Western Sydney Giants. Players were on hand for the media preview day at AIMS.