Skoda has all but decided it wants to give up on the Fabia RS hot hatch due to lack of sales. We think that's a real shame, since the Czech car has always been an oddball, a misfit that likes to do things its own way.
Just take the old 1999-2007 hatch, which adopted a 1.9-liter engine for its first-ever RS application. We're not talking about a 1.9-liter naturally aspirated engine like in the Peugeot 206 GTi, but a diesel. Yes, a diesel TDI that was supposed to be hot in the era of the Mk1 MINI Cooper. With 131 PS at 4,000rpm and 310 Nm of torque, it was actually reasonably fast, though not by modern standards, official figures stating 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) takes 9.6 seconds.
This particular Fabia RS gets over twice that much power down, its 280 hp being enough to overtake a Leon Cupra4 TDI that's also been tuned from 150 PS to 273 PS and 585 Nm of torque. Next time somebody says four-cylinder diesels are slow, just show him this story and set him straight!
The in-gear acceleration of both these cars is amazing. It's a shame though that both produce more smoke than a tractor and are unlikely to live untile "retirement".
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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