Fire up the... Skoda Yeti

SAY what you like about Skoda's strange choice of name for its latest model, but this is definitely one Yeti worth tracking down.

Having already won over rough ‘n' rugged off-roader types with the Scout four-wheel-drive version of the Octavia estate it was only a matter of time before the Czech car company came up with a real mountain goat of a motor and this, a distant relation to Volkswagen's Golf and Audi's A3, is the result. Cute and challenging at the same time.

Clamber into the cockpit and you're definitely not in the driver's seat of a jacked-up hatchback or an MPV with countryside styling cues; if a Land Rover Discovery went on the Atkins diet, chances are this is what it would feel like. Even though the version I drove stuck to powering just the front wheels everything about the commanding driving position, the view along the bonnet and the defiantly diesel noise the 2.0 TDi engine makes screams pure off-roader.

That's the reason why you're not going to find hot hatch handling when you head into the corners a tad too quickly, but both on the backroads and out on the motorways the Yeti performs impressively enough. It's just a shame that with some of the sillier options the version I drove cost almost £22,000, which I'd rather spend on the optional four-wheel-drive system and make it truly capable over tricky terrain.

Almost everyone who came across the Yeti loved it for exactly the same reason; if you have a dog and enjoy going for walks in the muddy countryside, you're going to struggle to better the Yeti without resorting to much more expensive machinery.

Clearly the writers of Auto Express do, because they've just made it their car of the year.

Buy a Yeti and your Labrador is going to love it. Luckily, so will you.

As published in The Champion on August 18, 2010