The Octavia was Skoda’s perfect idea of testing waters in India, it just had all right elements to be the part of an entry-level luxury car buyer’s wish list.
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Introduction:
The launch of the Škoda brand in India in 2001 heralded the entry of the Volkswagen Group into our country. Skoda kicked off its entry in India with the first-generation Octavia. It was one of the many cars that lifted our aspirations in the luxury car space in terms of affordability and features. With its combination of classy styling, frugal diesel engine, decent ride comfort and impressive features, the Octavia was a great buy during the early-nineties. I’d say that Octavia was Skoda’s perfect idea of testing waters in India, it just had all right elements to be the part of an entry-level luxury car buyer’s wish list. Not to forget the fact that the company offered many interesting flavours of the MK1 Octavia at different points of time. vRS for those who wanted a not-so-expensive performance car, Combi for those who desired practicality, L&K for the ones who preferred luxury and rich levels of equipment.
Skoda Laura marked its inception in India in end-2005, after four years of Skoda’s entry into the market. Laura was basically the second-generation of Octavia abroad, but it was sold here with the first-gen model side-by-side. Skoda India was forced to rename this car since the older model was still doing well in the market, an ironic choice of name though. The same notchback design with European flair was followed by Laura, which made it very beautiful with clean proportional lines. Under the hood, Laura had the same 1.9-litre PD diesel from MK1 Octavia with altered maps. The facelift Laura came with looks that were lot more butch and a design that spoke about style in itself. It was for the first time in India that the Laura got a petrol engine option. At a later stage, a vRS variant for the Laura was released, which was actually a bit of a cheat job for the truth to be said.
Third-generation Octavia came out in 2013, it proved to be the model that truly cemented Octavia as an astute choice of vehicle. The Octavia being an important product for Skoda in India, almost every single variant of the model was released in our market at the right time, same was the case with this generation as well. We have recieved almost all engine options in the MK3 Octavia right from the docile 1.4 TSI to the frugal 2.0 TDI in non-vRS lineup. In the 2017 facelift, Skoda had tried to add some more maturity to Octavia’s face. Designers hence replaced the minimalistic headlamps with a quad-headlamp setup, but this reminded us of the pre-facelift Mercedes Benz E-Class W212. Like all previous Octavia RSes, vRS 230 also sacrificed very little in the way of comfort, luxury and practicality to reach its lofty performance heights. In 2020, Skoda reintroduced a more powerful version in India, known as the vRS 245. Due to a revised camshaft, some software upgrades, a new turbocharger and some other engine components, this car had 15bhp and 20Nm over the vRS 230.
Skip to 2021, Skoda rolled out the fourth-generation Octavia in India, but it was a bit too late this time. Market launch for this model was planned for 2020 however it got postponed more than once, thanks to the COVID-19 situation. Sadly this model recieved a lukewarm response from we Indians who prefers midsize SUVs in this price point. ₹ 37lakh on-road for a D-Segment sedan wasn’t very appealing. What’s even worse was the fact that this car missed out on a lot of equipment like sunroof, ventilated seats, etc. Unlike its predecessor, there existed no option for a diesel engine for heavy users. Sad to see the news that Skoda has discontinued the Octavia recently, and even more sad that the company didn’t put effort to make it BS62 RDE compliant. With the demise of Octavia, the lower D-Segment sedan category of Indian car market is declared dead. Corolla, Cruze, Jetta, Elantra, Civic all are long gone. It is highly unlikely for these models to make a comeback to our SUV-centric market.
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Keyword: The Skoda Octavia in India: Evolution & a tribute