Published:
28 November 2023The Skoda Karoq is small by crossover hatchback standards on overall length, but the car’s wheelbase isn’t. That’s the first clue that Skoda aimed to make well-packaged practicality and versatility key strengths for this car – and it has achieved that aim very well indeed.
To look at the Karoq from the outside is to worry slightly if it’s another of those downsized pseudo-SUVs that isn’t really any more spacious or convenient than a conventional compact family car. But to sit in each of its rows of seating, to interrogate the ways in which those seats adapt and move, and to discover the car’s many distinguishing storage and convenience features is to be very pleasantly confounded.
The car doesn’t have the most high-rised, jacked-up body, but it does have reasonably high-set seats and plenty of head room. Its driving position improves the more willing you are to crank up the seat cushion and sit increasingly bent-legged – and that also benefits visibility, of course.
In the second row, large adults will find adequate head and leg room, good under-thigh support, and plenty of foot space under the front seats.
SE L specification delivers Skoda’s Varioflex back seats as standard (all three of which tilt and fold individually, and can also be removed completely, one by one or all together), and they add considerable carrying versatility to the Karoq’s armoury.
