We Just Swapped Our Skoda Octavia VRS Longtermer For An Estate, Because Wagons Are Awesome

Quick estates: they’re just cool, aren’t they? Having that bigger booty shows the world that you have important stuff to cart around, but you sure as hell aren’t going to compromise on performance just because you need a little extra practicality. With that in mind, we couldn’t wait to swap our Skoda Octavia vRS hatchback long-term test car for the estate version, especially as our example is rocking a manual gearbox and gorgeous Race Blue paintwork which you guys picked for us in a recent poll.

As well as the manual ‘box and the Race Blue finish, we’ve also specced vRS heated leather seats, front and rear parking sensors, the ‘Columbus’ sat nav system, a ‘black design package’ (which consists of a black grille surround and wing mirror covers) plus a double-sided boot floor, for when we want to lob a mountain bike or two in the back. It’s another petrol-powered vRS, which means 217bhp and 258lb ft from a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot.

Over the next few months, we’ll be throwing the Octavia into tough group tests, blogging about driving experiences, driving the car to its Czech homeland and potentially seeing how well it handles a dog seat belt. Yes, really.

Anything else you’d like to see? Hit the comments section and we’ll see what we can do.