Styling
The clue's in the name: Sleeper. Or Q-car, if you're of a certain age and you prefer the more antiquated nomenclature, a name which comes from Q-boats. These were old warships that looked innocuous and harmless on the exterior, but which were packing a serious amount of hidden firepower underneath. So if you're going to do a Q-car, or Sleeper, correctly, you do it
exactly the way Skoda's UK PR team has done this thing. It's a Royal Green Laurin & Klement Superb wagon, to all intents and purposes. A lovely colour on the top spec of the old Mk3 Estate, sure, but not something that immediately shouts about the fact this thing will waste RS 4s given half a chance. It even sits on its original, factory-optional alloys, wears all its glittering chrome detailing and 'L&K' badgework, and goes so far in the quest for originality that it retains its standard exhaust exits at the back. Only the very keen-eyed will spot the fact that the Superb Sleeper sits much lower over its wheels, all hunkered-down aggression and poise, or that peeping out from behind those 19s is a set of red AP Racing brake callipers. Otherwise, it's just another old Skoda, clogging up the outside lane of the motorway in front of you... isn't it?
Interior
If the outside is beautifully underplayed, the interior is bone-stock. And, again, this is a stroke of genius on the part of the brains behind this confection, not least because the donor car used for the Sleeper came with the *perfect* Cognac light-coloured interior upholstery to match the Royal bodywork. Anyone who's anyone will tell you that dark-green-over-tan is
the best combination in the automotive business, bar none. But there's also the elegant two-spoke steering wheel of the previous-gen Superb, that older Volkswagen Group infotainment screen which served so well for so long (until the ID cars came along; sigh), proper physical climate controls, switchgear running either side of the DSG lever, a crisp-and-clear Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster, all the luxuries of the bounteous L&K spec - honestly, the fact that Skoda decided not to bolt some crazy carbon-backed buckets into the front of this Superb, or strip out its rear bench in the quest to save precious weight, is all the more wonderful as a result.
Practicality
It's a Mk3 Skoda Superb Estate. So it has a cavern of a cargo bay tacked onto the back of it, measuring at least 660 litres with all seats occupied, and the rear-passenger legroom is voluminous enough to satisfy even the most pernickety of Chinese diplomats. In other words, you simply do not need a more capacious nor practical family car than this Skoda. Be that with this one's outrageous hidden talents, or otherwise. Unless, of course, you fancy a Superb Mk4 instead.
Performance
The Skoda team handed the source car, a late
272 TSI 4x4 wagon (these
Mk3 AWD 2.0-litres only had 280hp prior to the 2019 facelift, which introduced petrol particulate filters), over to RE Performance, a UK-based company which was behind the
227mph Octavia vRS Bonneville record-breaker. And from there, RE went to what is colloquially known as 'town' on the old Czech chariot.
Firstly, the EA888's standard turbo was hoicked out and replaced with a Garrett PowerMax blower instead. The spark plugs were uprated to NGK Racing items accordingly, with a do88 performance intercooler and air intake added too. Changes were therefore necessary to the fuelling system and the ECU of the Superb Sleeper to cope with the upgrades, with the net result that the 2.0-litre four-banger up front no longer makes 272hp and 350Nm as it did before - outputs that were enough to get the Superb from 0-62mph in just 5.7 seconds and on to a 155mph top speed, numbers that you might reckon were more than enough pace for anyone's reasonable needs.
However, they'll never be enough again after you've sampled the Sleeper. RE didn't quite double the figures across the board, but it got mighty close, because this innocent-looking Skoda Superb Estate now generates 477hp and a thumping great 661Nm of torque. No official timing figures have been set in the Sleeper, although most sources say the 0-62mph benchmark is now around the 4.5-second mark, while the car should be capable of breaking 180mph (if not 227mph, natch) in the right circumstances.
If anything, these ballpark estimates seem conservative in the extreme. Fully lit, and even in an area of 600-800hp ICE cars being relatively commonplace while EVs often dish out four-figure torque measurements in Newton metres, the Superb Sleeper is breathtaking. A custom-made downpipe and centre-section for the exhaust couples with the standard Skoda backbox to provide a splendid soundtrack, the more muscular burble of the car at idle transforming into a hard-edged roar when the TSI up front is under load.
But it's the sheer effectiveness of the four-wheel-drive system's traction which astounds, as you can get on the Sleeper's ample power as soon as you like, and the car will just thump all of its strength into the tarmac and fire forward with immense ferocity. It's brutal enough for thundering immediately off the line and accelerating from low road speeds, but the real jewel in the crown is the Superb's demented midrange when it is surfing the 661Nm tidal wave of torque. Remember that facetious comment we made earlier about the Superb clogging up a lane of the motorway? This car clogs, all right; it's just that it clogs away, in remarkably short order, from anything even remotely close to its rear bumper. It's insane how quick it is.
It can also stop every bit as well as it goes, thanks to those sensational AP Racing brakes: front 390x34mm two-piece discs and rear single-piece 330x32mm rotors are gripped by six-piston callipers, all fed through Goodridge Racing brake lines. And, short of the most expensive hypercars going, and maybe Porsche's fabled PCCB carbon-ceramic system, we can't think of any production cars that slow down as sublimely as the Sleeper. In fact, so good are this Q-ship's anchors that it throws the seven-speed DSG into stark relief as a weak link of the package. Where the throttle is all razor-sharp response in accessing an enhanced drivetrain that seems to exhibit no notable turbo lag, and the brakes are effortless and fade-free monsters which can haul you down from debatable road speeds time and time again, the gearbox is a tad dozy. It sometimes doesn't quite know which ratio it wants to be in to access the power and/or torque, while a few full-throttle changes during our time behind the Sleeper's wheel were a touch, um,
thumpy. But otherwise, full marks for this scintillating powertrain. Full marks indeed.
Ride & Handling
We had this Sleeper immediately on the back of a week in another
very special, very fast and very limited Volkswagen Group estate (full review of that 630hp masterpiece coming your way imminently), and one unifying feature of both of them was coilover suspension. Factory-spec in the case of the Audi, on this Skoda they're a set of KW dampers with height-adjustable multilink front and rear arms and sway bars, too. They lower the Superb Sleeper by 50mm compared to the regular car, which is why it looks so menacingly mean when it's just parked up.
Genuinely, though, we think
all cars should be on coilovers, having sampled this pair of performance wagons. In the 477hp Skoda's case, there wasn't a situation we encountered on road where we ever found its wheel or body control wanting, and yet its ride quality was - while understandably firm-edged - always gracefully taut and limber. Or, put another way, these KW coilovers, when correctly set up like this, perform that magical suspension alchemy of being perfect for both ride
and handling.
Thus, when the traction of the four-wheel-drive set-up is factored in, and you've got to grips with the slightly-too-light steering, the Sleeper is devastatingly rapid across country. Also fitted with grippy Yokohama A052 tyres on the 19-inch alloys, the roadholding is tremendous and if there's any slight complaint about the kinematic experience, it's that the source-material Superb's 4x4 system is not one of the VW Group's more advanced installations of AWD, as it lacks for any fancy front, centre or rear diffs that could apportion out torque in a more inventive, fun fashion. What we mean here is that the Superb Sleeper feels inherently four-square, or even front-led (which is how the 272hp TSI was tuned from the factory in the first place), so if you ever get to the point those A052s want to relinquish their hold on the tarmac, you won't discover an awful amount of chassis adjustability to the Sleeper. That being said, there's a devilish amount of joy in thrashing a green-over-tan Superb wagon along at the sort of speeds this machine can accomplish, be that on straights or through the bends, so we're not going to complain too much about the handling experience. Indeed, we're not going to complain at all: this is a brilliantly executed car, chassis and powertrain both.
Value
Hard to say how much the Sleeper would set you back overall here. If you've seen the
extensive media coverage of KY23 YVF already, you'll have an idea in mind of how much this project has cost in totality. One figure muttered in discreet circles was getting close to the £100,000 barrier, which is obviously gut-wrenching. But as this car is thoroughly one-of-a-kind at the moment, maybe that's not such a ridiculous price to pay. RE says the parts alone are in the ballpark of £18,000, while an end-of-the-run, second-hand Mk3 TSI 4x4 Superb Estate will likely be upwards of £30,000 on the used market. You could halve that by going for an earlier vintage, higher-mileage 280 TSI wagon, of course, or one that wasn't in bells-and-whistles L&K trim, but either way it's looking like £35,000-£50,000 just for the materials alone. Factor in that RE would need the car for more than a week of fitting, labour and fettling, and you get an idea of how expensive this creation could potentially be.
Verdict
Expense and unavailability (Skoda UK is not about to sell you the ready-made Sleeper in these pics, we assume) aside, this one-off, uprated Superb Estate is a mesmerising machine. Stupidly quick, fabulous to listen to, blessed with exceptional kinematics, and yet as unassuming and ridiculously practical as any other Mk3 Superb, this is an exquisite performance car by any sane rationale.
The UK press team insist that the idea behind the Sleeper was never designed to put anything like it into production, but given how outstanding is the work carried out by RE Performance and the hugely positive critical response the Superb has garnered so far, surely this is gauging the market appetite for a truly hot, factory-approved Skoda? You know, something equipped with that
367hp 3.0-litre TFSI from the current Audi S5. Or maybe, on the theme of V6s, the
2.9 from the old RS 4. Imagine that. Imagine a Skoda Superb Estate with an RE-tuned chassis, circa-500hp from a big-capacity, multi-cylinder engine, and understated looks too, all with the factory warranty preserved as part of the work; we're practically drowning in our own drool here. On the basis of this Superb Sleeper, you know fine well it would be utterly phenomenal. Come on, Skoda... you know you want to.