Skoda has proved it’s more than capable of holding it own on the European stage, but now its about to enter an even more competitive arena. The brand’s new Kylaq SUV is jumping into the sub-4-meter car segment that is the hottest in India’s massive car market. The Kylaq is aimed squarely at Indian buyers and won’t be sold in Europe. But it still put in some test miles at Germany’s Nurburgring, just as any other Skoda prototype would. Images particularly the profile shot taken on the roundabout close to the famous circuit entrance show just how tiny the 3,995 mm machine is.
But Kylaqs are destined to spend their
time on roads far much tougher than Germany’s perfectly smooth ones, so the
engineers have also subjected it to 800,000 km of Indian
conditions, which Skoda proudly says is more than the distance from Earth to
the moon and back. Repeated journeys on
rough roads can soon turn a new car into a quivering mess, so Skoda’s engineers
spent plenty of time putting the Kylaq through a shaker test to make sure the
interior trim doesn’t rattle, and left components in open weather to check how
they hold up to extreme sun.
Like the Kushaq and Slavia, two older
Skodas built for India, the Kylaq rolls on VW’s locally developed MQB-A0-IN
platform. Power comes from a 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder petrol
engine that buyers will be able to pair with either a six-speed manual or
six-speed automatic transmission. And to remind us that India isn’t quite the
safety backwater it was a few years ago, the Kylaq also gets a bevy of airbags
and electronic safety aids, though nothing that would impress a Volvo or
Mercedes engineers.
And if you’re wondering about the name,
it’s derived from the Sanskrit word for crystal “reflecting both the vehicle’s
pristine qualities and inspiration.” Sounds a bit OTT for a car that would be
too ordinary to get European buyers excited. But it looks like it might have
what it takes to find plenty of enthusiastic buyers in India.
