• Huge rear seat space
• Enormous boot beats most rivals
• Lots of practical touches

How much space is there?

Interior space is excellent in the Skoda Superb. Up front, there’s plenty of shoulder- and headroom, and a wide range of seat adjustment to get comfortable. However, it’s in the rear where the Superb really excels. Legroom is extremely generous, so even the tallest of passengers will be able to stretch out in comfort.

In fact, the only model in the Volkswagen Group with more space in the rear is the long-wheelbase Audi A8 limousine.

Top-spec Superbs even come with electric seat controls on the side of the front passenger chair to slide it forward and make more rear legroom. Width isn’t quite as generous, and three burly adults will feel squashed across the rear bench, but there’s space for two and lots of room for bulky child seats to make use of the two rear seat Isofix mountings.

70

Boot space and storage

The Skoda Superb has a sporty saloon-like profile, but it features a hatchback tailgate that provides easy access to the load area. This has a vast 625 litres of space and, when you drop the rear seats flat – which can be done from remote levers in the boot – this can be increased to 1,760 litres. These figures are among the best in the family car class, and put the Superb on a par with larger executive models.

Go for the plug-in Superb iV, and the hybrid running gear eats into boot space, with a relatively poor 485 litres on offer. That mostly removes the space under the movable load floor, however, so the main boot is largely the same as the standard car’s. Folding the Superb iV’s back seats creates 1,610 litres of space, which isn’t too bad when compared to the standard car, either. There’s also a handy underfloor cubby for storing the charging cables.

Thanks to the firm’s Simply Clever features, there’s more to the Superb than just a big boot, with neat Velcro-backed partitions that stick to the floor and help to stop smaller items sliding around. The clever features don’t end there; two umbrellas are hidden in the front doors, there’s a magnetic torch in the boot with a battery that can last for up to 48 hours and the electric tailgate can be set to open to a certain height, so it doesn’t hit low-hanging objects.

Meanwhile, the firm’s optional Virtual Pedal system allows you to open the boot hands-free with a wave of your foot under the car’s rear bumper. The two cupholders in the transmission tunnel allow one-handed opening of bottles on the move, while traditional Skoda features such as the ticket holder in the corner of the windscreen and a combined ice scraper/tyre tread depth gauge in the filler cap remain.

Is it easy to park?

The price you pay for all of that interior space is the fact that the Skoda Superb is a large car. It’s 1.86 metres wide, which is only 3cm wider than the Skoda Octavia, but it’s the car’s length that’s a bigger issue. At 4.86 metres long, there’s a lot of car behind the front seats, which can be tricky for some drivers to manage when reversing.

Thankfully, Skoda offers a variety of options designed to help you manoeuvre the car easily. For starters, the steering is light enough to be a doddle to turn from lock to lock, while the large wing mirrors offer a good view behind you.

All versions of the Superb come with front and rear parking sensors, too. When activated, the sensors’ surroundings are displayed on the eight-inch touchscreen to give you an idea of what’s around you. The top-spec Laurin & Klement also adds a rear camera and Park Assist (self-parking system) as standard, and these are options offered on all other models, while Area View (which displays a 360-degree live camera view) is also offered as an extra.

Safety

• Five-star safety rating in 2015
• Plenty of assistance tech available
• Should prove a safe companion

When it comes to looking after its occupants, and those surrounding the vehicle, the Skoda Superb should be a good performer. There’s certainly lots of kit available to ensure it’s safe. It’s worth noting that while the car earned a five-star Euro NCAP rating, this was achieved in 2015, and the test has since been made tougher, so the Skoda’s scores can’t be directly compared to some newer rivals, such as the Peugeot 508. However, all Superbs have electronic stability control, front assist with City Emergency Brake to avoid impacts with pedestrians and other objects, and Multi-Collision Brake, which controls the car after an impact.

The list of assistance systems fitted, or optionally available, on the Superb is vast and includes adaptive cruise control with traffic jam assist, blindspot detection, rear traffic alert that detects oncoming vehicles while reversing out of a blind parking space, hill hold control, a speed limiter, lane assist and travel assist, which reads road signs and displays them in the trip computer.

There’s up to nine airbags available, including one for the driver’s knees, and even the headlights have come under scrutiny with Light Assist, which switches between high-beam and dipped headlights automatically depending on the surroundings and traffic. Adaptive headlights change the spread and illumination of the beam depending on surroundings, speed and weather.