It’s the Skoda Citigo, Skoda’s take on the VW Up!

Skoda Citigo

If the latest addition to the Skoda range – the Skoda Citigo – looks familiar, that’s because it’s the Czech maker’s take on Volkswagen’s own city car, the VW Up! It gets a daft name too, but at least it doesn’t get the exclamation at the end.

Sensibly, with a big chunk of the world falling in love with little cars designed for use in our congested cities (and about time too), Skoda has chosen to jump on the bandwagon quickly with its Citigo, with the baby Skoda arriving on its home turf – the Czech Republic – this year and the rest of Europe by Summer 2012.

Just like the Up!, the Citigo offers a very sensible package for a city car, with a decent wheelbase offering decent amounts of room for passengers at the same time as a compact footprint. A bit like the original Mercedes A-Class.

There’s hints of the Skoda MissionL concept going on with the style makeover on the Citigo, with a chrome-framed slatted grill proclaiming this little car a new Skoda.

As you would hope, both versions of the 1.0 litre three-pot on offer – 59bhp and 74bhp – manage to squeeze in to the sub-100g/km bracket in their ‘Green-Tec’ variants. The 59bhp version of the Citigo Green-Tec manages 97g/km and 67.3mpg, with the more powerful 74bhp Green-Tec doing 65.7 mpg and 99g/km.

But the standard versions are a bit less tax-friendly, with the 59bhp doing 62.8mpg and 105g/km and the 74bhp 60.1 mpg and 108g/km. Which doesn’t actually seem all that clever for a little 3-pot.

Equipment levels are half decent with detachable SatNav, Bluetooth and Skoda’s collision avoidance brake assist on offer.

No prices have been revealed yet for the Skoda Citigo, but expect a starting point around £7k.

Making the Citigo yet another car that makes EVs a pointless exercise.

Skoda Citigo Technical specifications

* Figures apply to basic version, weight of driver 75 kg.

By Cars UK