Skoda Fabia RS Geneva 2010

By Alborz Fallah | March 03rd, 2010

Škoda is a brand which has struggled to gain momentum in Australia, be it their quirky designs or just a case of bad timing, Australian sales have been slowly building over the last few years. Nonetheless Skoda as a brand has gone from strength to strength worldwide under the Volkswagen umbrella.

The latest in the range is the Skoda Fabia RS and Skoda Fabia Wagon RS. Both variants are powered by the Volkswagen developed 1.4-litre twin-charged engine curently found in the new Volkswagen Polo GTi and Golf GT.

The Skoda Fabia RS and Wagon RS will be the first in the Skoda range to make use of the 132 kW super & turbo-charged four-cylinder petrol engine. This will mean a 0-100km/h time of 7.3 seconds and a top-speed of 224 hm/h (wagon 226 km/h). It does all of this whilst using just 6.4 l/100 km of fuel.

Noticing the Skoda Fabia RS won’t be too hard thanks to a rather unique front bumper design and integrated fog lamps. If you’re keen Skoda can fit a cornering system to the fog lamps which will mean they will turn on to aid cornering. Another option is the Volkswagen groups daytime running LED lamps.

The Skoda Fabia RS will ride on all-new 17″ lightweight alloy Gigaro wheels specially made for the Fabia RS. Under the wheels are red-painted brake callipers to emphasis the cars sporty nature. Additional unique features including tinted windows, a new rear bumper with a diffuser and a double exhaust tip.

In addition to the finely tuned sports suspension the RS also comes with ESP, ABS and ASR as well as the new XDS electronic limit slip differential system which can electronically brake the inside front wheel when more torque is required on the outside front wheel.

Moving inside, leather gearshift, onyx-coloured dashboard and handbrake height-adjustable sports seats with RS logos on the backrests are standard for both RS model variants.

To top it all a beautifully crafted three-spoke leather-clad sports steering wheel is available with an optional multifunctional version with gear change paddles for when the need for some manual shifting becomes too hard to resist.

All Skoda Fabia RS models will be available standard with Volkswagen’s seven-speed automatic DSG transmission.

So far Skoda Australia, which is managed by Volkswagen Australia, has not confirmed the Skoda Fabia RS, but says it is currently considering the models for local launch in order to broaden its model range.

We feel the Skoda Fabia RS will give Skoda much more appeal to the younger demographic of which it seems to currently lack.

Whatever

There is no doubt that Skoda’s are a nice car, if a little boring. I would much prefer to see SEAT here!!
Innova

Bring the Fabia here, Skoda Australia!

Baddass

Absolutely. Skoda, stop foofing around with niche products like the Roomster and bring the Fabia, a definite volume-seller. There is market evidence that premium small cars (because Skoda is premium here) do sell very well. Case in point, the Mini, 500 and 1-series getting reasonable sales despite their quite high prices.

The wagon looks a little odd, but this is expected when you make a wagon version of a tall-bodied small car. I do like the vRS very much indeed.

Myke

I’d rather a Skoda over a SEAT, atleast Skoda’s lineup is up-to-date. SEAT only have one new product, the Ibiza. The rest are either 6-year-old products, based off the last-gen Golf platform or a rebadged 9-year-old Audi A4.

Innova

Lets compare Skoda and SEAT’s products:
- Latest Skoda Fabia generation appeared in 2007, facelifted in 2010 (see above).
- Latest SEAT Ibiza gen arrived in 2008, not facelifted yet.

- Octavia 2004, 2008 (we already got the facelifted version here)
- Superb 2008 (we also got it here)
- SEAT Leon 2005, SEAT Toledo 2004
- SEAT Exeo 2008 (rebadged last gen Audi A4 2004-2007)

Frenchie

While the interior is very nice, outside is rather boring. It may look better in the flesh.
ABMPSV

If it will sell around $28,000 it should sell well. Excellent engine and gearbox. I would consider to buy one IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT!!!!

Innova

No way. $28,000 is more expensive than Polo GTi (26,990) and Swift Sport (24,490).

ABMPSV

You are right. I did not checked the Polo price, than should be around mid $20T.

Iz

Liking the sound of the vRS Fabia, especially the wagon. Its weird, its shaped funny but I like it. Pity we’ll probably never see it (wagon) here.
Innova

I still cant understand why we dont get it here. Look at Kiwi friends, the Fabia was on sale in New Zealand from last year.
Plus one more thing, when does the new Polo come to our shores? Funnily, it was on sale in NZ last October. So Australia and New Zealand, which one is the bigger market?

ABMPSV

Spot on! Why in NZ got Skoda long time ago?? Just checked a NZ used car website and I find a 2002 Skoda Fabia Combi man 98000km for $10,495NZD. So they got Fabia at least since 2002!

Innova

Perhap that is grey-import case. Its very popular in NZ. You can find many rare cars (especially for Japan Domestic Market) which most people have never heard.

PraetoR

The fact is that with cash for clunkers programes in Europe Škoda factories were working last year 24/7 on Fabias and yet the demand was higher than they could satisfy. Now they will open new line in India, and probably the Fabias that you will get to Au will be made there.

As to the Seat – Seat is currently VW’s biggest issue, salaries higher than in Škoda and productivity wayyyyy behind. And relibility… check any british web and you will see, how “well made” they are. And recent rebadging of A4 instead of producing own model makes quite clear, where the Seat is heading. They still have more aggresive design, thanks to the politics of VAG from 10 years ago (Audi and Seat were supposed to be the “sporty” while VW and Škoda more “conservative”), but the new VAG management doesn’t continute this philisophy, so with Veyron’s designer as chief in command of Škoda’s design, there will be probably some changes in future.
Ian K.

well, maybe Australian authorities require more then the Europeans. E.g. Australia does not recognize the EU crash tests, so the car makers have to crash more cars to be ale to start in OZ. Full frontal crash test required. ( even one car with passener airbag off, one car with airbag on…). you also require different child seat fastening then rest of the world, and even different screw jack……Maybe NZ is not so punctilous?

Hung Low

Styling may be subjective but anyone who thinks this car is of decent exterior design needs a reality check!
My kids could draw a better looking car with a crayon!
jojo

Frontal and interior styling is no better or worse than others in its class, whilst the rear end reminds me of a Diahatsu Charade. But with so much stiff compitition pricing/features would have to be very favourable to bring customers into the showroom.
Darren West

Any new if Skoda will be doing a version of the RS with the VW group 2.0 diesel engine? That would be something special!

Ian K.

well the Fabia RS uses the VW engine, but it is the 1.4 liter with 132kW. not enough? what do you need the 2.0 liter engine for? BTW. the 2.0 RS engine used to have 132kW too, that was 5 years ago:-)

toxic_horse

They should change the name to Skoda Fanboy
toxic_horse

Whats with the auto shifter. looks like t-bar from a 1990 camry.
ABMPSV

Not a bad car. In the IRC rally Skoda is doing very well. So far they leading the championship and half way through in Rally Argentina Skoda is 1,2,3!!!
F1MotoGP

Skoda finished 1,2,3 in Argentina!!!!
ABMPSV

Nice car but in Australia we are looking at what bage is on your car!! Skoda is doing well anyway. Škoda Auto was one of the few car manufacturers to achieve record sales in 2009. Overall it supplied its customers with 684,226 cars, 1.4% more than in 2008.
The best-selling models were the Octavia with 273,590 cars sold (+2.4%) and the Fabia with 264,173 units (+7.1%). The Superb posted the largest percentage increase in comparison with the previous year, with 44,548 cars sold, an increase of 73.7%. Sales of the first Škoda in the SUV segment – the Yeti – got off to a great start: from its introduction in Europe last September, until the end of the year a total of 11,018 Yetis were sold.
ABMPSV

I would like the Fabia RS 132kW 7 DSG. The Skoda Fabia RS price in Slovakia is 25,700 AUD and Czech Republic 27,917 AUD. Polo GTi should around $30,000.
http://caradvise.com.au Yawn

My issue with the Polo GTI is not the car but the dealer price.

The RRP is 27,990 but the dealer price brings it to about 33,500. Because they are so popular there is no discounting from either the RRP or the dealer price. There is also no corporate discounts.

It seams like the RS is only $1000 cheaper but if they take a brand building approach and also play ball with the on-costs, I think it will be a huge success.

Reading the latest Motor Mag, many will look at chipping etc and have a sub-6 sec hatch for $35,000. That would be very attractive.

I’ll have mine in green with a white roof, or blue with silver.