All-new 2025 Skoda Superb has eyes on police duties

The all-new 2025 Skoda Superb could become a familiar sight on Australian roads sporting flashing red and blue lights.

Months out from its anticipated local arrival, the Czech brand’s redesigned large liftback and wagon is already being prepped for police duties around the country.

Skoda has been busy presenting the fourth-generation Superb to local police forces with the view to bolstering sales in a market segment that’s declined in recent years – and picking up fleet sales that previously went to the Volkswagen Passat, which has since been discontinued Down Under.

“It [police sales] features sufficiently enough sales for us to do,” said Skoda Australia managing director Michael Irmer.

“We have interest from police forces again.”

While Skoda previously supplied Superbs to police in limited numbers – predominantly in Western Australia – the brand wants to cast the net wider with the all-new model.

Skoda Australia marketing manager Kieran Merrigan says the interest has broadened and the company is more seriously targeting sales to cops.

“Most of the states we’ve spoken to are very interested,” he said.

Key to the new Superb’s appeal is its lower centre of gravity and the dynamic benefits that brings because it is not an SUV.

“Police forces would like to have these sorts of cars because it has the space they need… the right capabilities – and SUVs can’t satisfy the police forces [in all situations],” said Irmer.

As before, the Superb will be available as a five-door liftback with loads of space and there will also be a wagon on offer.

It will initially be offered as a Sportline model with a 195kW 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine, the latest iteration of an engine that some police forces are already familiar with from the Passat.

And Skoda believes the Superb’s punchy turbo-four makes it a candidate for highway patrol vehicles as well as more mundane general duties cars.

Police forces are finding it increasingly tricky to source cars suitable for highway patrol work, especially when they need those vehicles to have better performance than regular police cars.

While some forces – including Western Australia and the Northern Territory – utilise modest four-cylinder engines for their highway patrol cars, the likes of the NSW police have insisted on vehicles with bigger, thirstier engines – often V8s. That’s despite being strictly limited when it comes to pursuits due public safety.

Ultimately, police could make up a significant percentage of the new Superb’s sales volume, in the same way that police forces have accounted for a decent chunk of BMW 5 Series sales in recent years, in part due to modest sales forecasts.

“It’s never going to become a high-volume seller in the range,” said Irmer of Skoda’s new flagship passenger car.

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