Get set for Rapid Skoda rollout

Skoda’s all-new Rapid small car marks the beginning of the 117-year-old company’s most aggressive ever new model onslaught, which will culminate in its first seven-seat SUV – a key model for the Czech brand in Australia.

“Rapid is just the start of the largest model rollout in the company’s history,” said Skoda Auto’s International Sales Director, Christian Wiegel, at the small car’s global launch in Slovakia this week.

“We will launch a new or refreshed model on average every six months from now on.”

Skoda was founded in 1895 and purchased by Volkswagen in 1990. It is the world’s third oldest surviving automotive marque (behind Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot) is seeking to grow global sales to 1.5 million vehicles per annum by 2018.

For the fledgling Skoda Group Australia, which opened its doors less than five years ago in October 2007 and again doubled its sales to 3500 vehicles last year, the new model rollout means an influx of improved, new or additional models that could see it top 10,000 sales per annum by 2014.

Fresh from launching the new Fabia RS and Roomster range last month and, in March, a new mid-range 112TSI AWD version of the Yeti, Skoda Australia is expected to bolster its local Yeti line-up by adding at least one additional unnamed 2WD version. The range currently opens at $26,290 with the 2WD 112TSI.

After a relatively quiet second half to 2012, however, Skoda will come out with all guns blazing in 2013, when it will launch at least seven new or updated models.

“It’s a nice problem to have, but we’ll have an embarrassment of riches in 2013, and 2014 won’t be much quieter,” said the Director of Skoda Group Australia, Matthew Wiesner.

“From next year we’ll have a major new model launch every year – two in some years – so our challenge will be to put a few months between them all.”

Kicking off the 2013 action in March or April will be the all-new Rapid liftback. Skoda’s first entrant in Australia’s booming small car segment -- which comprises about 25 per cent of the overall passenger car market -- will be joined by a second 12 months later around March 2014, when the Rapid ‘Spaceback’ arrives here.

Expect the Rapid hatch to make its world debut at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show, powered by the same petrol and diesel engines and also priced from about $20,000 here. There will be no Rapid wagon.

Next local cab off the Skoda rank will be the all-new Citigo micro-car, which is all but identical to Volkswagen’s Up!, It be available in Down Under both three and five-door body styles, potentially reducing Skoda’s entry price to less than $14,000.

Mr Wiesner said the Citigo would cost five per cent less than the Up! which will open from under $15,000 and launches here this September. Like its VW counterpart, the Skoda could be manual only following critical reviews of the car’s single-clutch automated manual ASG transmission.

Australian Skoda dealers drove the Citigo at the company’s Mlada Boleslav base this week.

“Citigo will give us the opportunity to go into a segment that is emerging and will continue to grow,” Mr Wiesner said.

“We’re in no hurry... We’ll let Volkswagen do the heavy-lifting with Up! But we have to be cheaper spec-for-spec.”

Next up will be the third-generation Octavia, which makes its global premiere at the Paris Motor Show in September and arrives in local showrooms in both five-door liftback and wagon body styles in June or July 2013. Larger in every direction, the new Octavia will spawn redesigned RS performance versions here in October 2013, as well as a new Octavia Scout crossover in early 2014.

Skoda designer Karl Neuhold said the new Octavia would also wear Skoda’s conservative but handsome new design theme but would not simply be a larger version of the Rapid.

“The new Octavia will incorporate this fresh, clear new language, but will have its own expression. It will be a car of its own,” he said.

Mr Wiesner said that by mid-2013 Skoda would offer Australians three distinct models in the light, small and midsize passenger car segments for the first time, with a clearly demarked price structure for the sub-$20,000 Fabia, the $20-$25,000 Rapid and $25,000-plus Octavia.

Also due here later next year is a facelifted Superb large car, which will again be available in sedan and wagon guises. A high-riding version of the latter, known as the Combi Outdoor, is also under consideration for Australia around the same time.

While a facelifted Yeti is expected to follow the Rapid Spaceback and new Octavia Scout on sale in 2015, the following year should see the arrival of the third-generation Fabia, fourth-generation ‘B8’ Superb and, perhaps, Skoda’s first seven-seat SUV.

Skoda has not officially confirmed it will produce a larger SUV than the Yeti and details remains scarce, but motoring.com.au understands the program has been locked in and the mid-size seven-seater – which will have substantial volume potential in Australia – will be based on the same new MQB platform that will underpin the MkIII ‘A7’ Octavia.

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