Ever since Skoda was embraced by the Volkswagen Group, the brand has come along in leaps and bounds – heck, sit inside a Skoda Octavia and you’d swear you were in a new Passat, another car that has made great strides since it first came out.

Now Skoda is putting out a concept that makes it clear they can join the sexy car party too with the unveiling of the Skoda Fabia vRS 2000 concept at the GTi-Treffen festival by the shores of Lake Wörthersee.

“These days, the GTI-Treffen is rightly hailed by fans of powerful engines and sporty customisation as the Mecca of car tuning,” says Škoda CEO Prof. Dr Winfried.

The Fabia vRS 2000 fitted in well at the lakeside festival with a car based on Skoda Motorsport’s broad rally car. It’s a mostly slick looking roadster with room for four occupants – and from all reports, most backseat passengers will be able to fit comfortably without removing their knees.

Along with the fun of top-down motoring, the sharp angle of the windscreen allows for a great view all round, even with the roof up. Skoda chose a quirky combination of pea-green for the paintwork and white for the wheels – possibly something in anthracite might have been a sportier and more subtle wheel colour, but if this one goes into production, a pea-green-white-wheel combo would certainly brighten a grey day.

There’s no news on the tech specs – and no sign of a rollbar either – but if this is the sort of style Skoda is capable of producing, we can look forward to some great-looking cars from the once much-maligned Czech badge.

As well as this sporty roadster, Skoda also revealed the Fabia Monte Carlo and rally Fabia Super 2000 at the same petrolhead festival with motoring fans from all over Europe turning up to enjoy the celebrations.

Skoda has a long history in motorsports and the Super 2000 dominated the IRC world championship series last year and Austrian driver Raimund Baumschlager drove one to win his 10th Austrian rally championship and he was also on hand at Wörthersee.

By Georgia Lewis

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