Skoda Kushaq

We get our first taste of the mid-size SUV from the Skoda-VW stable. Does it stay true to the ethos of the brand?

- Sirish Chandran

IT’S ONLY THE START OF THE year and we must be careful not to get ahead of ourselves, but this right here could quite possibly be The Most Important Car of 2021. It is the first fruit of the massive 1 billion Euro investment into resetting VW Group’s Indian operations which includes not just development of a range of India-specific cars on an India-specific platform, a massive focus on localisation and a new R&D centre to enable it all but more importantly Skoda being handed the reigns to the erstwhile Volkswagen plant outside of Pune as well as the driver’s seat of Group operations to effect a radical change in culture, attitude and outlook — with the end goal of cornering a combined five per cent market share by 2025. It’s the reason why the first MQB-A0-IN car we’re sampling is a Skoda; it’s the reason why the first car isn’t a car but a Creta-sized SUV; and it’s the reason why the name, while seemingly aligned with Skoda’s global naming strategy, is also Indian. Kushaq is derived from the Sanskrit word for king and, in keeping with the Indian theme, it will have a massive 92 per cent localisation at launch going up to 95 per cent at the year end.

An important car, then. But has it become too Indian? Too focused on slashing costs, on stripping off all weight, on flash and bling at the expense of The Thrill of Driving; on kitna deti hai?

Don’t ask us about styling