Skoda has confirmed that it will be putting the Skoda Yeti into production, after the Skoda Yeti Design Study displayed at the Geneva Motor Show was quite well received by the public. After the success of the Yeti concept, Skoda also produced a two-seater pick-up version that used a hard top that could be removed for an open top driving experience.
The name for the new car has not been decided yet, so the production version could use the Yeti name again, or an entirely different name could be used. The production Skoda Yeti will be a unique Skoda in the sense that will use some parts from the Volkswagen family parts bin much like how the Skoda Roomster was developed – it used the Polo chassis front and the Mk4 Golf chassis rear.
You may think why bother when the Volkswagen Tiguan is there for Skoda to use, but the concept Yeti was a little SUV-like thing smaller than the Tiguan. Think of it as something positioned somewhere between a CrossPolo and a Tiguan.
Three more images after the jump.
Skoda Yeti 2.0 TDI (2009) CAR review
First Drives
June 2009
Don’t like it? Blame Nissan. Stung into action by the remarkable success of the Qashqai (which last year recorded a 7% increase in UK sales when the whole market was down 12%), Skoda clearly feel that making the fifth model in their line-up a crossover will give them a slice of just about the only action around at the moment. So let’s hope that stable doors and bolting horses stay out of the equation for a while yet.
Happily, with the Roomster format already offering levels of seating flexibility to put rival MPVs to shame, the only added ingredients needed were the ‘command driving position’ so essential to school-run mums these days, a whiff of 4x4 capability and a daft name. The advertising campaign should be a guinea a minute. Probably won’t be in these days of the bland Euro-ad, mind. But it should be…
So, is the Skoda Yeti just a tall Roomster, then?
That’s pretty much the impression, until you hop from the 1.2-litre petrol and 2.0-litre diesel front-wheel drive versions – which will account for at least 85% of sales – into the realms of all-wheel drive. At which point a choice of a 1.8-litre petrol engine and three strengths of 2.0-litre diesel become mated to the usual Haldex clutch trickery and, on posh versions, a trick Off Road button which re-maps throttle and ABS-associated braking and traction control systems for added Edmund Hilary.
Interestingly, far from being a mere gimmick, that button has a couple of unique tricks up its sleeve which I don’t recall coming across before. Firstly, it allows you to creep down hair-raising slopes with feet off all pedals and the car in neutral. That’s right, neutral (even first gear can prove too fast) yet still have control of the throttle. And secondly, because the stability control systems are powered directly by the battery, you can stall halfway down and the car won’t take a blind bit of notice. It works swimmingly, thus opening England’s disused quarries to a whole new clumsy ox generation.
01-01-2011, 08:20 AM
رد: skoda yeti
