New Skoda Superb styling lines emerge ahead of launch

Skoda this week unveiled the new Superb in heavily disguised prototype form, but this sketch image, which surfaced on a Czech website, is apparently the real thing and shows off the new Superb’s styling pretty accurately.

As expected, it looks very much like a larger Octavia with detailing and some of the sleek styling of the Vision C concept shown at Geneva in February. Hardly a shock, then, but the styling of the new Superb will be key to moving it up a notch from the current model’s ugly-but-practical image.

The new Superb will have some seriously heavy lifting to do as Skoda continues with its ambition to sell more than 1.5-million cars a year. While it’s well on the way to doing so (2014 saw Skoda make and sell 1-million cars for the first time) there’s still a long way to go.

The new Superb will have to sell as many units in its lifetime as the first two generations of Superb (from 2002 to today) have managed - roughly 700,000 sales.

It’s that pitch towards the business sector that will define this new Superb. Underneath the skin lies the now-ubiquitous Volkswagen Group MQB platform, but the Superb will be the biggest car yet to make use of it - larger even than the new VW Passat.

While the emphasis is on comfort and practically (with a massive 625-litre boot) the Superb will also have a long list of high-end options including headlights that dip themselves and a massive 8-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay integrated into the electronics.

Engines will range from a basic 1.4-litre TSI petrol turbo with cylinder cutoff to a range-topping 190hp 2.0-litre TDI diesel with four-wheel-drive and a possible high-perofrmance model using the 280bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol from the Seat Leon Cupra.

The new Superb will be unveiled at the end of February in Prague before getting a full public debut at the Geneva motor show.