« Reply #58 on: 16 March 2021, 14:58 »
People are put off by image because Škoda market them that way.
VW group politics. It wasn’t always that way.
The Octy is too big for me, in fact the Golf is too and if you’d ever seen me try and park mine you’d appreciate why!
Rewind to 2003. Hot Golfs weren’t hot until VW suddenly dropped the expensive R32 on us.
Golf GTI’s were really GT Line cars back then.
I’d grown bored of tuning mk1 and mk2 Golfs, the VR6 lacked much options for tweaking and so I’d gotten into tuning Diesels which was catching on over the other side of the channel around the turn of the century.
The go to performance cars in the VW group weren’t VW’s. The Ibiza and Leon Cupras, the S3 and... the Octy vRS. These cars had image.
Then the epiphany that was the Fabia vRS TDI 130 broke cover in 2003 instantly becoming the GR Yaris of its day in cult car status.
These vRS cars were cool, they had street cred amongst the switched on.
Someone in a grey suit took notice at VW HQ around the same time they realised Ford was running rings around VW hatches so they poured a load of money into the Mk5 GTI development then instantly dumbed down the in house non-German marques who were eclipsing the parent company in image.
On another note, Andrew makes a big issue about the stop start button location in the Octavia.
What he doesn’t realise is that the VW ID models have the button in the same place as the Octy. The electric cars that are the next generation, not the end of the last.
Mind you it’s most likely a cost cutting issue as the ID’s are low rent inside.
Logged
‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
