Inside? Well, let’s start with the rear, because a voluminous boot has been front and centre of the Superb estate’s appeal and that’s no different this time. Luggage capacity with seats in place is 690 litres, up 30 litres from before.
There is a storage cubby to the left, latches by the tailgate to drop the rear seats, luggage hooks, Velcro barriers to secure loads from sliding and even now an electric load-bay cover. If you want the best estate boot in the business, there’s a strong chance this is it.
The hatchback impresses for boot space, too, and is better than its predecessor, with 645 litres of room available; that’s significantly more than the Peugeot 508, which only offers up to 487 litres.
There is room for large suitcases and gold clubs, and you get the same storage compartments as the estate model – higher-spec models also get a multipurpose storage pocket.
It’s a shame the hatchback’s loading lip is so big, and there’s no height adjustable floor like you get in the estate. Still, the wide aperture of the boot makes lifting luggage inside a bit easier.
If you opt for the plug-in hybrid estate, it gets 80 litres less capacity due to its higher load floor.
There’s credibility to Skoda’s claims of more rear cabin space, too, which will be important to buyers who’ll regularly be carrying passengers. Those rear seats offer large amounts of leg room, head room is good, which takes us up to the front seats: also spacious, comfortable, with a roomy and straight driving position.
The business end of the cabin is mostly successful. “We have closely listened to our customers and brought haptic controls back,” says Johannes Neft, Skoda’s technical development chief.
Sometimes it feels like listening to customers is a novelty, so as well as a large, 13in landscape touchscreen in the dash centre, there are three multi-function rotary dials and some supplementary buttons beneath it.
You can preset what the dials do, then give them a push to change the function, then rotate them to change the settings. Adjusting the temperature or drive mode, for example, is a doddle, especially on the move.
The round, broadly adjustable steering wheel has real buttons too, plus two pushable scroll wheels. (A press of one button brings up the driver assist systems and the scroll wheel pings them off.)
The gear selector has moved to the right-hand stalk to free up space on the centre tunnel, so the left handles indicators and wipers. There’s a separate light-switch panel. Mirrors and even each individual window get actual buttons. I know, it’s 2024, I shouldn’t have to say this, but here we are.
If it is less successful, it’s in the feel of some materials. All look good, and most feel solid – stuff you touch regularly, like the doors, particularly.
But those rotary dials feel a bit flimsy and if you push some places on the dash, it’ll creak and move under-thumb a bit, not unlike a modern Mercedes (likewise more about show than solidity). Not a big deal, but feels worth mentioning because it’s unusual, a little sensibility given over to style, at a cost