Superb, In Every Way

Skoda has reintroduced the Superb in 2020, hoping to break customers out of their SUV hypnosis. We drive the new 2020 facelifted version, and check if it still has what it takes to carry the legacy forward

- Rajeev Mathew

Let’s face it. It’s the age of the SUVs. Indians are leaning towards that chunkier, big design, pushing the premium executive sedans into oblivion. But Skoda doesn’t want to be pushed around. And you can’t seem to push it around, either. The Superb has been a segment leader for years. And in 2020, the Superb is on a mission to reclaim its position.

The new, facelifted Skoda Superb arrives in two major variants in India — Lauren & Klement (L&K) and Sportline. Skoda has made a few changes to the exterior, but they remain subtle and minimal. The older design still looked fresh and didn’t need a lot of tweaking in the first place anyway. The tweaks change depending on which model you’re looking at. The L&K Superb get slimmer, sleeker headlamps that hold the new, larger, chrome grille in the middle. The L&K’s bumper has also been lightly redesigned with a new air dam that is flanked by aero-enhancing Air Curtains.

The use of chrome on the L&K version is heavy, yet tasteful. Chrome is incorporated in the vertical slate of the grille, the lower air dam that joins the fog lamps, and the window frames. At the back, the Superb comes with a slim chrome strip running through the tail lamps, a cleverly designed chrome garnish on the bumper that mimics twin exhausts, and a chrome Skoda logo ties it all together.

The Sportline, on the other hand, comes with the same design tweaks, the only difference being the addition of a spoiler and a redesigned set of 17-inch gunmetal-finished alloy wheels. The Sportline uses zero amount of shiny, blingy chrome. It actually uses blacked-out finishing on every spot where chrome was used on the L&K. Overall, the L&K is sophisticated, and the Sportline looks like a young brat while still retaining some of that sophistication.