APRIL 2019 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 129FINER DETAILS
Skoda does little things to
make owners all gooey. The
Kodiaq Edition has hidden
umbrellas, a boot light you
can use as a torch and swing-
out door protectors to avoid
car-park dings. Blankets are
nice, but even with winged
head restraints you can’t
justify £325 on a ‘sleep pack’.NERVOUS PARKER
The rear parking sensors are
nervous wrecks, freaking out
about adjacent cars when
you park perpendicularly.
One morning it bleeped code
red at the rear left side, so I
got out to look and there was
a metre of space behind! It
must have feared I was going
to shunt that Mini. Annoying.SUPER SCREEN
The 9.2-inch sat-nav
touchscreen is a thing of utter
beauty (named Columbus
after the Mrs Doubtfire movie
director Chris no doubt). Big
screens offer no hiding place
for poor graphics and bad
colour/typeface choices, but
Volkswagen Group never
misses a beat on this stuff.NEED A TOW?
No surprises that a rear-
wheel-drive BMW on
skinny tyres struggles in
a snowdome. Kodiaq, an
award-winning tow car, to the
rescue! All-wheel drive and
oodles of grunt effortlessly
tugged out the 530e.
PHIL MCNAMARA
@CARPhilMcSkoda in four
bitesize chunks
that no truly great driver’s car has
ever run a diesel engine, we’ve opted
for the Super Size Me M850i: an
outrageous 4.4 litres of twin-turbo
petrol V8 decadence, driving all four
wheels via standard xDrive (rather
than the M5’s switchable front-/
rear-wheel drive – the flagship
M8 will surely get that) and an
eight-speed auto.
4
£108k...?
Clearly, BMWs pretty
confident the 8-series is a
seriously good car – how else can
you explain pricing that’s nudging
six figures before you’ve ticked a
single box (£99,525 for the M850i
before options)? The 850i isn’t a
million miles from cars with badges
synonymous with ‘luxury brand’
pricing, namely Bentley’s new
Conti GT (perhaps the 8-series’
most like-minded rival, albeit for
another £50k in W12 form, though a
V8 is coming) and Aston Martin’s V8
DB11, which starts at £145k.
Partly because it comes groaning
with kit straight out of the box,
and partly because taking the price
any further north would quickly
start to look entirely ridiculous,
my 8-series ‘only’ boasts options
to the tune of £8880. Of those the
big hitters are the M Carbon roof
(£2650: pretty, but on a two-tonne
Our cars
In bits
Two -tonner
flattens bumpy
surfaces.
Cambridgeshire
County Council,
you’re welcomeSkoda Kodiaq
Month 4The story so far
Now into its third year of life, Skoda’s first SUV faces its
biggest test: three McNamara children under six years old
+ Space-efficient seven-seat cabin; excellent infotainment;
fairly comfy and quiet- Almost £40k for a mid-level Skoda; lacks dynamism; only
two Isofix brackets among five rear seats
Price £37,629 (£39,235 as tested) Performance 1998cc diesel
4-cyl, 187bhp, 8.8sec 0-62mph, 129mph Efficiency 49.6mpg
(official), 36.2mpg (tested), 151g/km C02 Energy cost 17p per
mile Miles this month 1761 Total miles 9398LogbookThe little things making a big difference
car?), the Technology package
(£2800, and combining semi-au-
tonomous Driving Assistant
Professional and Parking Assistant
Plus), the Adaptive M suspension
Professional (£1895 – this car costs
£99.5k and still you need to find
more for clever suspension...) and
BMW’s £1500 Laserlights.
The grand total’s £108,405, the
elephant in the room Porsche’s
outrageously good new 992-gener-
ation 911, pricing for which starts
at £93k for the Carrera S with PDK.
It might be 79bhp down on power,
but the Porsche is also almost
400kg lighter...5
And, all that aside, what’s
it actually for?
Expensive, fast, pretty
(I think), painfully cramped
in the back and possessing of
the longest bonnet and boot this
side of a Rolls-Royce Phantom
hearse, the M850i is a curious
proposition when subjected to any
kind of logical thinking. Perhaps
tellingly, it has also prompted its
maker to come up with a series of
oxymoronic descriptors, including
‘elegant racer’ and ‘luxury sports
car’. You what? Maybe everything
will make perfect sense by the time
we hand it back after six months.
@BenMillerWordsAlex Tapley