Category: Compact MPV 
Price Range: £10,045 to £14,210
Loads of room, extraordinary design, very versatile seating, well made, quiet, comfortable and surprisingly, fun to drive. Good crash test results - and good value too.
You can't fully hide boot contents, gloveboxes are small, no FSI engines and that's about it.
Here's a car of the future, very useful, highly individual-looking and great to live with. It's rational with a wacky twist, and sets Skoda up as its own creative force.
Here's a new kind of compact MPV. When we saw the Skoda Roomster first in concept form and then, at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show, as a production car, it seemed at first to be a van-shaped rival to a Citroen Berlingo or a Renault Kangoo. But there's much more to it than that. Skoda's technical development chief, Dr Harald Ludanek, describes it as a car with the roominess of a house and the agility of an aeroplane, and that's how the Roomster is designed to look.
The tall, square-cut rear half suggests living space while the windscreen and front side windows seem to be one big curve thanks to the blacked-in screen pillars. The jetliner-cockpit effect has strong overtones of a Saab - another car with aeroplane influences.
Inside, the three rear seats slide and fold and can be taken out, and there's loads of legroom thanks to a wheelbase longer than an Octavia's. The rear track is very wide, too, which helps space, stability and agility. The Roomster is entirely a Skoda project, with no greater VW influence apart from ultimate board-level approval, and it makes use of parts from various other Skodas. The front-end structure, plus the engines, are from the Fabia, the rear structure and suspension are from the previous, Mark 4 Golf-based Octavia (still built for central European markets), the steering wheel and some other pressings come from the new Octavia, and they're all joined together with new floor pressings and outer body panels.
Skoda has priced the Roomster above the French van-based MPVs but below the purpose-built players such as the Ford Focus C-Max and the Renault Scenic. It comes in three trim levels, called simply Roomster 1, 2 and 3, and there's a wide range of modestly-powered engines. Fuelled by petrol are a 1.2-litre with three cylinders and 70bhp, a 1.4 with 85bhp and a 105bhp 1.6, while diesel options are two three-cylinder 1.4s with 70 or 80bhp and a 105bhp 1.9. Transmissions are five-speed manual or, optionally for the 1.6, a six-speed Tiptronic automatic.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Skoda Roomster
wrote on 28 08 2007
wrote on 24 05 2007