![]() ![]() The roads from North Yorkshire to the Scottish borders flow fairly freely but there’s often long runs of undulating twists and turns that lend themselves well to a brisker driving style. On the second leg of my journey, the DSG in manual action came into its own. Pushing up or down effectively shifts up or down the gearbox, it’s akin to a manual gearbox which can be useful for instance of towing amongst other things. This enables a manual version of the DSG. The DSG can be overridden from the gearshift lever by moving the lever to the left. You can of course introduce a little manual intervention. In the extremes and if you need everything (and quickly), the engine responds rapidly giving you the full 150 horses with no delays. It actually works quite seamlessly but can take a while to get used to, especially where you need to position your right foot. Here the software detects that more ‘ooomph’ is required and thus the upward shift in the DSG happens at higher revs. ![]() If however you find you need just that little bit more, you need to push the throttle downwards, almost past the ‘Cruise’ position. On a flat surface and under a fairly gradual acceleration, this is adequate. The software senses to move the DSG up to the next gear when the revs hit just below the 2000RPM level. ![]() In normal ‘drive’ mode, the shifting upwards of the 7-speed DSG unit seemed fairly rapid. It does however have its own personality. Given the circumstance, the Scala’s DSG performed well. The A1 was a bit of a stop/start affair with the high volume of traffic slowing the proceedings down somewhat. So on a cold February Friday afternoon, I made my way north on the A1 arriving just East of Harrogate in just over 2½ hours. The trip would take me across fairly varied terrain heading from Peterborough up to Wetherby for an overnight, then on the following day to Carluke (just South of Glasgow) and finally onto Barrow-in-Furness via some high-ground in Cumbria to attend a birthday celebration. To give me a good first feel of the Scala, I decided to have a weekend away going North of the Border. Update 2: Driving impressions and performance/handling Our Scala has arrived in the midst of winter but the loan period spans into the early summer period so I’m looking forward put it’s through its paces across all three seasons.The wide scope of differing road and weather conditions should be a good test to see how the car copes in the real world.Ĭatch up with me later in February for some real-world driving impressions as I take the Scala North of the Border for a 780 mile weekend jaunt. An in-depth breakdown can be found on the buying tab.I suppose it’s akin to the ‘Aldi’ of hatchbacks with Skoda offering a really great product at a price often below that of the competition with the pointless badge snobbery factor being kicked firmly into touch. Speaking of trims, at the time of writing there are four available – SE, SE Technology, SE L and Monte Carlo – with the walk-up generally meaning SE Technology costs £665 more than the boggo SE, the SE L £1,495 on top again, and the range-topping Monte Carlo an extra £2,635. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?Ī 1.0-litre base spec Scala with the lower output and a manual rocks up at £20,120, a 1.5-litre with a DSG in range-topping trim a smidge past £26k. Head over to the interior tab for more.Īs ever, there’s plenty of so-called “Simply Clever” touches, including an ice scraper with a tyre tread depth gauge inside the fuel filler cap, a ticket holder on the driver’s A-pillar, an umbrella inside the driver’s door, and an integrated funnel in the lid of the windscreen washer tank to prevent unwanted spillages. The Scala also features one of the largest boots in its segment at 467 litres, which increases to 1,410 litres with the split back seats folded down. It’s particularly spacious too, both up front and in the rear where there’s no shortage of knee or headroom thanks to the 2,649mm wheelbase. There’s plenty of common sense, with it thankfully avoiding most of the pitfalls found elsewhere in the VW Group. It all feels very sensible in here: you get a steering wheel with proper buttons, infotainment screen measuring either 8.0 or 9.2 inches depending on spec, and – rejoice – individual climate controls. In short, it’s a well set up, mature little car. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the more powerful petrol variant, but in a car like this it’s simply not needed. We found the three-cylinder petrols to be flavour of the month, particularly the upper paired variant and the six-speed gearbox, with its gently characterful engine and smooth-as-you-like gearshifts. ![]()
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