The Updated Skoda Octavia Is Lurking In This Image

Some days, there’ll be some industry-shattering automotive news, a new car that pushes technological boundaries, breaks records or changes the very way we think about cars. And some days, Skoda will tease a facelifted Octavia.

And that’s just fine. The Octavia is one of the most pleasant, sensible cars on the market: it’s reliable, well-built, affordable, spacious, and basically classless. It’s a nice car.

Now, that niceness will be complemented by some newness, as Skoda readies a mid-life facelift for the current, fourth-generation Octavia. The short teaser video released by Skoda doesn’t really give much away, and it certainly doesn’t look like it’s been particularly radical with the design.

There are refreshed headlights and grille up front, and on the rear, new Skoda lettering that “reflects the brand’s revised corporate identity.” Phwoar.

Skoda has confirmed that it’ll continue to offer the Octavia as an estate and a sort of half-hatch, half-saloon liftback thing. You can also expect a largely similar range of petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid offerings as the current car. Judging by the new VW Golf 8.5, the Octavia may also include features to make it less irritating, such as actual buttons on the steering wheel and a much-improved infotainment system.

Crucially for us, the Octavia vRS should carry over, and retain its options of a 242bhp petrol or 197bhp diesel, both 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pots mated to seven-speed DSG transmissions, although the oil burner may go the way the same way now discontinued VW Golf GTD. The sporty PHEV vRS iV appears to have been deleted from the UK range at the time of writing (it was dropped previously due to an order backlog), but we suspect it’ll return for the facelift.

Expect a full reveal and prices, in the words of Skoda, “shortly.”