SKODA OCTAVIA RS 245

Still the best bang-for-your-buck fast car in India?

- TUHIN GUHA

Too close to premium brand rivals in price

Type 1,984cc, Inline-4 turbo petrol

Max power 245PS @5,000–6,700rpm

Max torque 370Nm @1,600–4,300rpm

LxWxH (mm) 4,689 x 1,814 x 1,469

Price ₹45.21 lakh (on-road Mumbai)

OD Rating

Strong engine, grippy limited slip-diff, racy looks, practical daily driver

As we wind this year down, very few of us will look back at it with any sense of fondness. But driving a car that you didn’t think you’d ever get your hands on, and one with a reputation such as this one, we’ll take that as a nice goodbye gift from 2020.

Launched just when the pandemic turned our world over, all units of the hot Skoda Octavia RS 245 were accounted for until the economic downturn that followed led to some cancellations. Lucky for you and us, there’s now a few of them still going around.

Didn’t we already have an Octavia RS?

Yes, but this is the run-out special Octavia RS 245, 200 of which were brought in as CBUs to cap off this generation of the Octavia and to satiate buyers who couldn’t get their hands on the earlier batch of 250 cars in 2017. As the name suggests, power from the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol has been bumped up to 245PS, a 15PS increase over the previous car. Torque has been bumped up too, by 20 Nm to a potent 370 Nm. The result is a significant drop in the 0 to 100 kmph time to 6.3s, from the 6.7s of the RS 230.