ŠKODA OCTAVIA COMBI ARRIVES IN NZ
The new Skoda Octavia combi (wagon) has arrived in NZ and is continuing to offer both space and practicality packaged in a sexy new body style that delivers high quality and value for money.

Based on the same new platform as the Octavia liftback, the combi is 4572 mm long, 1769 mm wide and 1467 mm high, 5mm higher than the liftback version.

The new Octavia combi continues to offer Škoda’s "extra bit of car" with outstanding interior space. With the rear seats in place, the combi will hold 580 litres of luggage. With the rear seats folded, the loading capacity increases to an outstanding 1,620 litres.

The combi is now available in the same trim specification as the liftback. There is a petrol engine (2.0 FSI 6 speed tiptronic) available or customers may want to to choose the incredibly fuel-efficient diesel unit, the 2.0 TDI (with direct shift 6 speed gearbox) with 103kw of power and 320Nm of torque.

The combi has now arrived in showrooms and joins the already well received, liftback Octavia. The new Octavia is a car set to gain popularity among independent-minded new car buyers across the country with its combination of upper-medium class size and lower-medium segment pricing. The 1.6 Octavia liftback has just won the What Car, Car of the Year Award in the UK for the second successive year, while the brand has all three models in the top 10 of the 2005 Top Gear Customer Satisfaction Survey.
(http://www.topgear.com/content/features/stories/2005/11/stories/01/1.html)

This is still more proof of how far Skoda has come under Volkswagen Group ownership and NZ consumers are also now beginning to realise what a high quality product is on offer.

Customer deliveries of the combi have now begun. The Octavia’s are full of “Simply Clever” ideas. Quality levels on the liftback and the combi are first class and comparable to much more expensive European cars. Douglas Blair, General Manager of Skoda NZ said “of the 492,000 Skoda’s sold globally in 2005, 90,000 of them were sold in Germany which again underlines just how good the Skoda brand is. The results from our own NZ surveys show that once people have made their purchase they are incredibly happy with their new Skoda and are certainly not afraid to tell us and everyone else which is fantastic”.