The R on the German configurator has just white, black (€695) and blue (€741). They are the most popular colours on the R, but I’m surprised that there’s no grey available, and that you can’t go for the multi-coat white. 

‘Enjoy’

Depends on the car. For me it was a no-brainer, it was significantly cheaper and better looking than the Polo. But in some models the VW has a noticeable advantage in cabin quality, although the latest generation cars seem to be lacking there.

Not really. Shades of grey, an interesting but potentially difficult to live with yellow/gold colour, a nice but very expensive triple coat red, and a dark metallic blue. Those extra colours you could get on the R are special order colours. I’m not sure VW even offer them any more. They’re not listed in the UK…

The name bit was actually OP’s name, not the BMW’s, as my name is Felix.

Or some weird Chinese knockoff of something.

So much this.

I think this is the important thing.

It may be the side parts of the headrests that are pleather. But lots of ‘true’ luxury cars have pleather in places. 

They will often say as much in the brochure too. It’s very noticeable on some cars where the feel of the ‘leather’ is very different on direct seating surfaces to other ‘leather’ areas in the car.

One thing that I would like is to be able to easily ‘retrofit’ items which the car didn’t have originally. I love adaptive cruise, but lots of cars don’t have it. But almost everything now has a forward collision radar, because it gets points in EuroNCAP. On the latest Golf (and siblings) VW Group are apparently…

I wonder if these were pre-production cars which can’t legally be sold. I remember a video of first responders in Czechia cutting up new Skodas, which were pre-production cars donated by Skoda for use in training.

On my last trip, London to Chicago in February (fuck Covid), I flew out with AA on a 787 and back with BA on a 777. The AA headrests were good, whilst the BA ones didn’t hold in place brilliantly but weren’t bad (the rest of the BA seat was miles ahead of the AA one, but that’s mostly because it was wider and I’m a…

Some do offer adjustable ‘winged’ headrests, usually on long-haul aircraft, although some short haul flights do offer them. I know BA’s long haul economy seats have them, as do the seats on AA’s 787s. 

It’s just an LED. The car already has a sensor in the buckle for the seatbelt warning anyway. They’re standard across almost all cars now in Europe because they get ‘points’ for the EuroNCAP safety ratings. They work just by having a button pressed by the metal tongue of the seatbelt when it’s inserted far enough to…

Skodas typically do really, really, well in reliability reports. There’s a reason why so many are used as taxis across Europe. My family have had several Skodas, and the single failure has been a wiper motor which was fixed under warranty. 

“Dodge Mustang”

Is it just me... or is there no way to open the doors? In the last picture of the interior there’s a sweep of brown leather from the door tops round to the centre console, and it seems like it’s one piece. I get that these are renders, but still.

It’s a shame. I feel like Skoda is exactly what VW are trying to sell themselves as in the US market in a lot of ways. More aimed at good value and spaciousness.

Yeah- you’re not going to get anything behind my friend- he’s 6'4 and gangly, the driver’s seat is almost touching the back seat. But that would apply in basically any small-ish car, simply because he’s an outlier in terms of height. Some Skoda products though would be perfectly doable. My parents had until recently a…