No one really saw the Skoda RS coming.
I’m speaking here of the original Skoda RS, based on the rear-engined 110, 130, and 200 models back in the 1970s, almost exactly 50 years ago.
Communist cars – and Skoda was then firmly behind the Iron Curtain – weren’t supposed to be motorsport successes, but the rear-engined RS cars from Czechoslovakia surprised all by taking class wins not only in the European Touring Car Championship, but also on the 1977 Monte Carlo Rally. The diminutive original 130 RS is why, to this day, you can buy Skodas with Monte Carlo badges.
And then, the RS brand, as far as Skoda was concerned, rather went into hibernation. It re-emerged in 1998, in the first-generation Octavia, proving that Skoda could take the bones of the VW Golf GTI and make a better hot hatch than its German masters.
Since then the Skoda RS brand has become a firm favourite, with the ever-popular Octavia RS becoming the ‘farmer’s Ferrari’, providing a mix of performance, practicality and rugged reliability seemingly calculated to appeal to country folk (and a few of us city slickers too).
When it comes to electric power, though, the RS results have been less clear-cut so far.
Skoda’s sole EV RS has been, up till now, based on the big Enyaq, and while it’s certainly a quick car and blessed with imposing quality, you’d be hard pressed to describe the Enyaq RS as truly fun. Capable, certainly. Likable, definitely. But its size and weight push back against its RS-ness.
Can the Elroq do better as an RS? It’s certainly a little smaller and lower than the Enyaq, despite sharing the same basic MEB platform bones. It’s almost closer to being a big hatchback than a small SUV, even with the slightly raised ride height and the roof bars.
However, that ride height is lower for this RS version, by 10mm at the front and 15mm at the back, although the DCC adaptive suspension dampers (standard for Ireland) do rob back a couple of millimetres at each end. The lower springs do give the Elroq RS a little more ‘stance’, as do the unique bumpers and the mean-looking 21-inch alloy wheels (20-inch rims are standard).
There’s power to back up the meanness, too – an extra electric motor driving the front wheels brings the total output to 340hp, with the rear motor delivering 545Nm of torque and the front 134Nm. The result is a very brisk 5.4-second 0-100km/h run, and the Elroq RS is easily capable of pushing you back firmly into its big, comfy, bucket front seats.
It’s perhaps not super-fast – the similarly priced BYD Sealion 7 Excellence murders the Elroq for 0-100km/h time – but it’s certainly quick enough for most, and delivered with the confidence of four-wheel drive traction.
As well as the updated suspension, Skoda has tweaked the brakes and the steering, and so the Elroq RS feels a little more commanding on the road than its standard, rear-wheel drive version. The steering has some genuine feel and feedback, and a meaty sense of heft through the leather-wrapped rim of the three-spoke steering wheel.
With a gorgeous stretch of tree-lined, twisting Czech tarmac in front of us, the Elroq RS proves easy to set up into a delightful rhythm of swishing from corner to corner with ease and poise.
If there’s a demerit here, it’s that this RS is, like the Enyaq, not all that RS-y, in that it’s quite softly sprung (even with the DCC suspension set into Sport mode) and it’s not pin-sharp in the way it dispatches corners.
Blame the 2.2-tonne kerb weight, but also blame a general trend in Skoda’s recent RS models to become a little more focused on overall ability than on ultimate driver reward.
That’s probably better for long-term ownership – after all, few of us drive every day as if our trousers are on fire – but less so for short bursts of back-road thrills.
That long-term ownership thing looks pretty tempting, though. The Elroq RS gets a unique cabin treatment, with wall-to-wall fake suede trim (made from recycled material and delectably soft to the touch), those wonderful bucket seats, and a sense of quality lacking from most of the competition.
It’s also hugely practical, so if you’re baying for an RS but need to convince the family that it’s a usable day-to-day car, point out the vast acreage of rear legroom, the big storage spaces in the front of the cabin, the usual sweet Skoda touches (umbrella in the door, ticket holder in the windscreen, bag hooks in the boot) and the safety that comes from having the likes of blind spot monitoring, lane-keeping steering, adaptive cruise control, and standard rear side airbags (an item which many others don’t bother fitting as standard). Perhaps skim over the fact that the boot, at 470 litres, is a touch small by Skoda standards.
It’s also fairly efficient. A long day spent zooming around the bucolic countryside northeast of Prague, mostly in Sport mode, returned 20kWh/100km and against Skoda’s claim of 549km on a full 79kWh battery, around 460-480km should be easily extracted.
It’ll charge quickly too, at up to 185kW on DC power, giving you a 10-80 per cent charge (about 380km worth) in 26 minutes if all’s working as advertised. Skoda’s also introducing a new charging payment system for its MySkoda app, which gets you discounted charging at Ionity fast chargers, and others, for a monthly fee.
Is there a catch? Of course there is; it’s €54,100 including delivery, which, as Yossarian says in Catch-22, is some catch.
Then again, you wouldn’t spend an awful lot less on a regular 286hp Elroq in Sportline trim, so the upgrade to get the extra power, performance, poise, and four-wheel drive doesn’t seem quite so bad.
Just brace yourself for the cost of some of the option packs.
Skoda is no longer quite the value-focused brand of old.
A pin-sharp electric hot-hatch? No. If you want that, then go for the delightful new Alpine A290. The Elroq RS? A classic Skoda; big on practicality and common sense, but enlivened with just enough performance and personality that you can convince yourself it’s a bit naughty.
