Skoda Superb hatchback - Practicality & boot space
There's no shortage of space inside the big Skoda Superb
The first thing anybody notices on first acquaintance with the Superb is the sheer amount of interior room on offer. The previous Superb seemed vast inside, but the new car is even bigger. There are also some very thoughtful design touches.
Rear-seat passengers are possibly the best treated of all, thanks to a huge amount of space and big rear doors making access very easy. Those in the front are well catered for, too, with height adjustable seats and an easily adjusted steering wheel, as well as those handy umbrellas in the front doors.
Other clever features include a light in the boot that doubles as a rechargeable torch and an ice scraper housed in the fuel-filler cap. There’s also an extremely effective cup-holder in the dashboard that offers enough grip for you to unscrew a bottle top with one hand.
On top-of-the-range models, or when ordered as optional extras, such features as lane-keeping assistance (which makes tiny steering adjustments to help keep you between the white lines) and traffic-jam assistance, (helping you steer, brake and accelerate in start/stop traffic), are a very welcome asset to take the stress out of long journeys.
Skoda Superb interior space & storage
When the latest Superb was introduced, it was given a welcome boost in elbow room and headroom in the front as well as the rear. It’s now a car in which three adults can sit in the back seat with room to spare. Beyond merely comparing well with similarly priced cars, the back seat of the Superb approaches limousine levels of comfort and room.
A pair of excellent cup-holders and a large glovebox for use by those sitting in the front seats, who also get big door storage pockets and a sizeable storage bin in the centre console. The door storage compartments in the rear are a little smaller, but there is a pair of cup-holders that fold from the rear centre armrest.
Boot space
Boot space in the Superb has increased over the previous car by 30 litres and measures 625 litres. This can be expanded still further if the rear seatbacks are folded down, which is possible on all models. This brings the load area to a total of 1,760 litres – 323 litres more than offered by a Ford Mondeo hatchback and enough space to deal with plenty of holiday luggage.
Large items can be loaded easily thanks to a huge, wide-opening boot lid and although the boot lip is made more pronounced by a low boot floor, it doesn’t prevent heavy items being lifted in and out with ease. It’s a deep, wide, very long load space with the seats down, and there’s a space for the parcel shelf behind the rear seats when you need it out of the way. An organiser beneath the boot floor in the Superb iV offers a handy place to keep the charging cables.
The tailgate is more conventional on the current Superb than on the old car; previously you could open the rear either including the glass like a normal hatchback or in the manner of a traditional saloon. Here, though, it’s a simple, much lighter one-piece opening which can be optionally electrically operated and controlled by waving your foot below the rear bumper.
