Skoda Laura Facelift

Skoda has a new facelift coming for the Laura in India. The car will be officially unveiled soon, but here's a small preview of what you can expect.

The new design follows the aggressive theme of the new Superb and the Fabia with completely restyled front end and a significantly redesigned headlight unit. The tail end gets minor updates to the lights and the bumper. Interiors will get new colors and redesigned air-con vents, integrated audio and multi-info display. Customers will also get new alloy design options to match their taste. With minor testing and ARAI proceedings to follow, the new Laura should be available across the showrooms by mid-2009. Technically the car will remain the same for India.

Fabia extends family

Skoda India is on a roll with some successful models like the Octavia, Laura and the recently launched Fabia hatch. However, the car that created waves amongst the enthusiasts was the Skoda Octavia RS. The Czech company however put the 150bhp monster to sleep a couple of months back due to the lack of demand.

But it seems that the performance hungry enthusiasts have a new offering coming their way from Skoda - this time in a diesel flavor though. The Fabia's strong chassis will soon house Skoda's trusty ol' 1.9 TDI powerplant to introduce itself in a new variant - the Fabia Sport. The car is expected to be launched by the end of this year and the hot favorite RS Yellow color will be back on the brochure. The car will also feature side skirts, a rear roof spoiler and 16" alloys.

There are three other variants on the cards as well. The first being the Fabia Greenline - tweaked version of the diesel hatch which will supposedly return better mileage. The next in line is the Fabia Combi - an estate version (no idea why Skoda wants to gamble again considering the Octavia Combi never really sold) and last but not the least, is the Fabia Roomster - the car that Skoda displayed at the Auto Expo.