Skoda Citigo five-door (2012) first official pictures

Skoda will show this slightly more practical Citigo five-door at the 2012 Geneva motor show. Mirroring the VW Up five-door, the Czechs buck the tradition of offering a single body derivative in the bargain basement city car sector.

It's only in recent years that more manufacturers began to offer a choice of three or five doors in the smallest car segment. The five-door Citigo has no more actual space inside than the three-door - it's just easier to slide into the rear pews.

Both the three- and five-door Citigos arrive in Skoda showrooms in mid May 2012. The UK is somewhat late compared with its Czech homeland, where the Citigo went on sale at the end of 2011.

The Citigo is an identikit badge-engineered version of Volkswagen's diminutive Up. Just a pair of 999cc triple-cylinder petrol engines are available at launch:

• 1.0 petrol 59bhp, 70lb ft, 99mph, 13.9sec 0-62mph, 62.8mpg, 105g/km CO2
• 1.0 petrol 74bhp, 70lb ft, 106mph, 12.7sec 0-62mph, 60.1mpg, 108g/km CO2

Spec the Greentec version and you can trim that CO2 figure down to a scant 96g/km.

This is a tiny city car with clever packaging: it's just 3560mm long yet a long wheelbase means you can just about fit adults in the back row. Note also that this is the first Skoda to feature the brand's new face and logo.

The Citigo is one of the instruments by which Skoda aims to double sales to at least 1.5 million by 2018 - in line with the Volkswagen group's masterplan to soar to the global number one spot within the next six years.

That'd take Skoda to 1.5 million sales annually, up from the record 879,200 vehicles it sold last year.

By Tim Pollard