Skoda Rapid Makes…Sensual Debut in Paris, Pricing Starts From £12,900 in the UK

An affordable compact-sized sedan with ample passenger and luggage room is just what the doctor ordered for many new car buyers in Europe. The new Skoda Rapid, which made its first public appearance at the Paris Auto Show this week, fits that description to a tee.

Loosely based on the VW Polo, the Rapid is 4.48 m (176.4 in.) long, 1.71 m (67.3 in.) wide and 1.46 m (57.5 in.) tall. It comes with a capacious 550-liter boot space and according to Skoda, ample room for “up to five persons”.

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Skoda Begins Production of Rapid, Expands its Mladá Boleslav Plant by a Third

The first public appearance of Skoda’s new Rapid will take place at the Paris Auto Show in late September, shortly before its European market launch in October, but the company commenced series production of its latest model on Friday, August 24. Read more »

Skoda's Upcoming Rapid Hatchback Visualized

Not too long after Skoda sales and marketing boss Jürgen Stackmann confirmed the development of a hatchback version of the new European market Rapid compact sedan, Khalil Bouguerra of Virtuel-Car used his photoshop and artistic skills to visualize the five-door model.

Bouguerra's proposal blends the body of the Vision D concept car displayed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show with styling elements from the Rapid, which gets a hatch tailgate revealing a massive boot with 550-litres of space.

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Skoda Confirms Five-Door Hatchback Version of New Rapid

The freshly launched in Europe Skoda Rapid sedan will soon be joined by a conventional looking five-door hatchback, previewed by the Vision D concept car displayed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.

The Czech automaker's sales and marketing boss, Jürgen Stackmann, broke the news to Autocar magazine. He said that the hatchback would be shorter than the Rapid, which itself is a notchback-style sedan with a tailgate that lifts together with the rear window, featuring a "Golf–like rear end".

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2013 Skoda Rapid Sedan Detailed in 106 HD Photos and on Film

If you weren’t content with the two official images and scant powertrain details on the new Rapid sedan released by Skoda last month, we have more than 100 pictures and additional specs on the compact sedan's lineup.

Like its sister model the Seat Toledo, the Rapid makes use of on an extended version of the VW Polo's platform and measures 4.48 m (176.4 in.) in length, 1.71 m (67.3 in.) in width and 1.46 m (57.5 in.) in height.

The Czech automaker said that despite the car's compact dimensions, it will "comfortably seat up to five persons" providing ample luggage space.

While we cannot comment on the passenger room yet, the new Skoda that is equipped with a tailgate that lifts together with the rear window has a capacious boot space of 550 litres, which is just shy of the 560 litres offered by the much larger BMW 5-Series Estate.

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New Skoda Rapid Saloon gets its First Commercial

Even though Skoda's new offering in the highly competitive compact sedan market will not be arriving in showrooms across Europe before the fourth quarter of the year, a TV spot on the Rapid has already hit the interwebs providing us a first look at the car on the move. Read more »

New Skoda Rapid Compact Sedan Officially Revealed, Debuts in Paris

These are the first photos of the final production version of the all-new Skoda Rapid, a compact sedan that sits between the Fabia and the Octavia models and which was previewed through the Mission L concept at last year's Frankfurt Motor Show. Read more »

Skoda Drops Teaser Sketches and Images of the 2013 Rapid Sedan

After our revealing spy shots of the European market 2013 Skoda Rapid, there's really not much left to show about the Czech automaker's entry in the compact sedan category.

However, if you're still wondering what the front and rear ends of the car will look like without the craftily positioned decals on the lights, here are some official design sketches and cropped images of the final production model.

First seen in showcar trim as the Mission L concept at last year's Frankfurt Motor Show, the production Rapid will make its first public appearance in Paris this September and hit dealerships across Europe before the end of the year.

Despite its saloon appearance, the rear window lifts together with the boot revealing a capacious 500 liters of space.

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Scoop: First Interior Photos of New Skoda Rapid

Last Tuesday we brought you spy shots of a virtually undisguised Skoda Rapid prototype showing us what the compact sedan will look like on the outside.

Today, we can share the first scoop inside the new Rapid as our man with the long lens not only caught up with another test car, this time finished in red, but he was also able to come close enough to snag the interior.

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Spied: All-New Skoda Rapid Compact Sedan Caught Undisguised

Czech carmaker Skoda is more or less done hiding its Rapid sedan prototypes, one of which was snagged by our scoop photographers while running around the Nürburgring racetrack in Germany.

Skoda's engineers simply applied some convincing, but fake, decals on the tail lamps, the top part of the headlamps, and the rear door lines, just to keep our spies on their toes.

Other than that, what you see in these pictures is what European buyers will get when the compact sedan model makes its first public outing at the Paris Motor Show this September before reaching dealerships at the end of the year.

The European market Rapid (Skoda also sells a smaller and unrelated Rapid sedan in India) is the production variant of the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show Mission L Concept.

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Skoda MissionL to be Named Rapid in Europe, will go on Sale Before the End of the Year

The production version of the Skoda MissionL sedan will be called the Rapid in Europe, the Czech automaker revealed today at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show where it is displaying a lightly modified version of the concept model for the Chinese market.

Even though they share the same name, the compact-sized notchback is a different model from the smaller India-market Rapid sedan that is based on the VW Polo saloon.

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