Which one should you buy after 25 years of Skoda VRS?

Which obviously doesn’t do the Octavia VRS a disservice as it moves over time if necessary. But the fundamentals of the idea haven’t been tampered with – plenty of space, ample performance, decent value. Indeed, those qualities have become the calling card of the entire vRS brand, and here we are after 25 years with the idea of ​​a sporty Skoda, perhaps as desirable as ever.

While the Octavia has remained a constant throughout, the vRS range has diversified over the years in ways you may have forgotten. The first Fabia vRS is the best known, which used diesel power to outsmart the Minis, but the successor used both a supercharger and a turbocharger to produce 180bhp. And quite a few reliability issues, but at least that makes them cheap now. There have been hybrid VRS models, electric, SUV models and perhaps, if the new Fabia 130 does well, the return of hot hatch models. None were the kind of performance cars that would get you out of bed on a Sunday morning, but a carefully balanced compromise between talents – fast enough, fun enough, smart enough, practical enough – has kept them perennially popular.

And to be fair, it’s well used, which means it’s hard to find good examples of the early vRSs almost a quarter of a century later. Cheap to buy and cheap to run is good news for new customers, but very few of those early Octavias and Fabias have been cherished later in life. There is currently only one of the last on PH, actually one of the very last special editions, which looks really good (as far as the photos show us). To get an idea of ​​its desirability, it retails for six thousand dollars – or almost twice as much as the cheapest versions of the Mk2 Fabia VRS.

On paper, the idea of ​​a small engine with a supercharger and a turbocharger, with low capacity consumption and decent power, worked. There’s also supercharged response with turbo torque. And you could say that a Skoda looked like a Delta S4. But the 1.4 TSI was difficult to say the least. The upside to that is that they’re cheap, and the ones that made it this far (after launching in 2010) should be fine. Or at least got some work done. That era of Fabia still looks nice, there was even a station wagon if you want it, and 230 km/h for four grand is quite convincing. But there are safer bets, let’s put it this way. An Octavia from the same era, for example.

With such a heavy focus on the vRS EVs lately, the humble Kodiaq equivalent has been a bit forgotten. For those who need seven seats, though, it’s a very good package: a tunable turbo engine, smart looks and a whole lot less money than anything else that can offer the same kind of skills. At launch it was even a diesel, for those who had far-reaching family holiday plans. As has happened to so many cars lately, the Kodiaq VRS has become uglier and more expensive in recent years, so lightly used looks more tempting than ever – this one is £20,000 less than a 2026 car, with just 20bhp less, after 15,000 miles.

When it comes to electric vehicles, you probably don’t need us to tell you that big savings are possible. Enyaqs that cost over £50,000 new are less than £30,000 with 73 plates on them, and there are some funky colors around. It’s certainly a lot easier to overlook a somewhat basic driving experience for just over half the price.

To answer the question at the beginning, there is one Skoda VRS from the past 25 years that stands head and shoulders above the rest as the most recommended. It is of course an Octavia VRS, and specifically the previous Mk3. The current car is undoubtedly good, but more annoying and expensive than ever. You can get used to one now, higher mileage examples from £15,000, but we’d put that money into an older example; Certainly not as sharp to drive, but nicer to look at, nicer to drive, honestly just a nicer car.

There’s even a manual gearbox for those who really want it, like in this £8,000 hatchback. With that kind of money you can buy decent early examples of basically everything: diesel, petrol, hatchback, station wagon, manual and DSG. Although later cars looked a bit weirder, they did get some extra power and, in the 245 variant, the VAQ front axle and seven-speed DSG option for the first time, so they’re probably worth seeking out. This red manual costs just under £14,000.

Once you get past that kind of cash, you’re looking at the best low-end examples of the Mk3, including the special Challenge edition, cars with less than 20,000 miles, and the ultimate version of the VRS as a top bag: the 4×4 TDI wagon. Whatever you choose, the Mk3 Octavia feels like the best exponent of everything that has been made for a great Skoda VRS over the past 25 years. We hope for a few more of them in the next quarter century.