Skoda’s Superb remains true to its name – but for how much longer?

Is this it? Has the tragic day arrived? Perhaps tragedy is overstating it. It’s a tragedy when a loved one passes away.

Would it be a tragedy if the Skoda Superb were no more? Well, it would certainly be a sad day. The big Skoda saloon, which began life in 2002 as a stretched and mildly restyled version of the VW Passat, has been a steadfast, loyal sort of motoring companion.

It’s been generally uncomplicated (aside from the silly saloon/hatch boot of the second generation model), always solidly reliable, and consistently relied upon by the kind of people who don’t like it when cars let them down. For taxi drivers and police officers especially, the Superb is one of those rare cars that flirts with nominative hubris, yet always somehow lives up to its name.

Alas, this is probably the last generation of the big Skoda. Saloon sales are continuing to slip across Europe, which is the Superb’s heartland, and so it seems likely that there will be no next-gen Superb, but instead a larger, more all-round capable new Octavia which will essentially replace both current models.

Another great bites the dust and heads for the scrapyard in the sky, alongside the Ford Mondeo, Toyota Avensis, Peugeot 508, and all the other sensible, excellent saloons that we just don’t buy any more. SUVs are all anyone wants now.

You can see it in the sales figures. The Superb’s taller cousin, the Kodiaq SUV, is the sixth-best-selling car in Ireland in 2026. The Superb’s sales figures are a bit ... less superb. What would once have been almost a default-choice kind of car has fallen to niche status.

Doubtless, the price tag – the Superb is now effectively €50,000 – hasn’t helped, as not only is that more than a doubling of the entry-level price in 24 years: it’s also sadly true that car buyers will see value in splashing out that sort of sum on an SUV, even when it’s mechanically identical to the four-door saloon that they’re ignoring.

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For those of us who care, though, there is at least still a chance. The Superb is still on sale (and its plus-sized Octavia replacement isn’t due till around 2030), and Skoda has actually just updated it. For the first time, you can now have the mix of a four-door saloon body (actually it’s a big, sleek hatchback, but we’ll come back to that in a moment) with the plug-in hybrid powertrain option. Previously, you could only have the PHEV engine in the sensible Combi estate model.

That means a blend of a 1.5-litre turbo four-cylinder petrol engine and a 40kW electric motor (for a robust total of 272hp), fed electrons from a 19kWh (net) battery that claims an electric-only range of up to 134km, and which we found delivers something like 100-110km in real, wet, soggy, chilly conditions with the heating and heated seats most definitely turned up.

Combined, you should get about 700-750km out of a full battery and full fuel tank, and when you head off on longer journeys, with a flat main battery, fuel economy will generally hover at about 6.0-6.5 litres per 100km (although we did see as good as 5.4 litres per 100km on some shorter runs).

Normally, you could cram 645 litres of whatever you need to carry into the Superb’s boot, but the hybrid battery means that has been reduced to a useful, but rather less capacious, 485 litres

Not exceptional, perhaps, but not bad, and the 50kW DC fast-charging capability adds another layer of options, meaning you can top up the battery quickly on longer runs.

Our test car – resplendent in Cobalt Blue metallic paint – was a Sportline version, which gets mean-looking 19-inch alloy wheels, a sporty bodykit including a small slick-up boot spoiler, high-backed bucket front seats (exceptionally comfortable they are too), and blacked-out exterior trim, because shiny chrome ain’t sporty.

Then again, neither is the Superb. It may be packing 272hp, but this is a car which very definitely prefers life in the slow lane. While one passenger who hopped aboard during our week with the Superb declared that they thought it was a BMW at first, the Superb won’t be bothering any of the Munich car fleet much when it comes to the sharpness of its handling. It’s utterly fine to drive, and even flirts with enthusiasm on a twisty road, but the best thing to do is to adjust the adaptive suspension dampers (a €1,094 option and worth every cent) to their softest setting, and then just sit back and waft.

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You can kind of see why our passenger thought the Superb might have been a Beemer. Quite apart from the big, black 3 Series-style grille outside, the cabin looks and feels ... well, superb. There’s acres of soft (synthetic) suede, some fillets of imitation carbon fibre, and a sense of quality that’s hard to beat.

Skip the upgrade to the bigger 13-inch touchscreen, as the standard 10.4-inch screen does the job perfectly well and it dominates neither the dashboard nor your eyeballs, and praise be – and a pay raise – to the person in Skoda who designed and fitted the handy little three rotary controllers which manage your cabin temperature, fan speed, stereo volume, heated seats, and even the driving mode. They feel a touch fragile and wobbly at times, but they mean you’re not ducking your head down to stare at the damned touchscreen every five minutes.

Space in the back seats remains cavernous, and the Superb is one of the very few cars on sale (beyond serious premium-badged stuff) where you’d happily hop in the back for a long-haul journey. The only downside is the boot.

Normally, you could cram 645 litres of whatever you need to carry into the Superb’s boot, but the hybrid battery means that has been reduced to a useful, but rather less capacious, 485 litres. Still, that’s just a handy excuse to buy the estate instead, and we never ran out of usable space, so it’s clearly not too much of a pinch.

All that for €56,040 (plus the extra for the adaptive suspension)? That does seem steep, and it should be remembered that the identical-under-the-skin VW Passat is actually cheaper in its basic form, although fractionally more expensive as a sporty-looking R-Line. However, the Skoda’s interior is far nicer than the VW’s, and I reckon the Superb is the better-looking car on the outside too.

Big four-door saloons are, clearly, still on the endangered list, and it will take a sales miracle to save the Superb from the VW Group cost-cutting scissors now. Get one while you still can, is my advice.

Lowdown: Skoda Superb 1.5TSI 268hp DSG PHEV Sportline

Power: 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with 85kW motor and 19.0kWh lithium-ion battery producing 272hp and 350Nm of torque and powering the front wheels via a six-speed DSG automatic transmission.

CO² emissions (annual motor tax): 32g/km (€180).

Fuel consumption: 1.4l/100km (WLTP) 6.0l/100km (Observed).

Electric range: 134km (WLTP) 100km (Observed).

0-100km/h: 8.1 secs.

Price: €57,134 as tested, Superb starts from €49,975.

Our rating: 5/5.

Verdict: On the chopping block, but still ahead in front of the rest.