For whatever reason, Skoda has allowed the Fabia to lag behind the Polo, despite both models competing in one of the largest segments of the European car market. By that, we mean that while the Polo is based on the MQB A0 platform, the Fabia is derived from the older Polo's PQ25.
You may find mentions of the MQB in Skoda's press releases, but that's because both models use the same kind of engine technology. MQB is supposed to be a toolkit of parts to swap around, not just the chassis itself.
About a year ago, Skoda launched the mid-life update for the Fabia, and we still think it's pretty ugly. However, the facelift was the excuse Spanish magazine km77 needed to put this Czech model through its famous moose test. This involves three rows cones that a car must drive to, a bit like a rallycross stage, and simulates something suddenly appearing in the middle of your lane and you having to avoid it.
They always start at 77 km/h, but because the Fabia could easily handle that, the speed was bumped up to 80 km/h. Frankly, that's insane for such a small and cheap car. The reviewers say the responses of the Skoda were super-predictable and allowed them to comfortably do a higher speed.
Looking through our archives, we found that the Polo "only" managed 77 km/h, despite having wider tracks. Frankly, this result is impossible to explain. Maybe the weather conditions were slightly better or the driver had a Fabia at home and knew exactly how it would respond to sudden steering inputs. Either way, you shouldn't count your VW Group chickens before they hatch. Skoda doesn't get enough respect for the work it does. Some of VW's engine reliability problems were fixed by them in the past.
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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