This Skoda gives you the last laugh

‘Doctor on the Road’: Skoda Kodiaq

For independent practitioners with a growing family, the petrol Kodiaq offers a fantastic package and is great value. Our motoring correspondent Dr Tony Rimmer reports.

For doctors, just like car manufacturers, past negative reports can take years to shake off and regaining patient trust can be a challenge.

In the car world 60 years ago, Skoda had a reputation of poor build quality and unreliability. These 1960s’ cars were basic rear-engined saloons that were designed and built in factories in Soviet-ruled Czechoslovakia. In the UK, Skodas bore the brunt of many jokes and buyers stayed away.

Now younger buyers, unaware of previous problems, have taken to the brand, which was boosted when VW took over in 1989. Skoda is currently on a roll. It is regularly releasing impressive new models to a newly appreciative audience. In 2017, it launched the Kodiaq.

Named after a large Alaskan brown bear, this model heads up the ever expanding Skoda family of SUVs that includes the smaller Karoq and, most recently, the Kamiq.