Overall rating:

Two miles of runway isn't quite enough for a maximum attack run in Skoda's Bonneville record-breaking car, so 157mph is a touch short of its 227.080mph ability. But with a dearth of salt lakes in the UK it'll have to do...

Key Facts

Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol
Transmission: front-wheel drive, six-speed manual
Body style: modified five-door hatchback
Rivals: skydiving, bungee-jumping, human cannonball
Top speed: 227.080mph
Power: circa 600hp

In the Metal:

From the 'Shake and Bake' sticker relating to the Bonneville team's Talladega Nights - originating from Ricky (Elder), the Skoda's creator - to the last-minute riveted airflow bars on the roof, the Octavia reeks of race-car patina. No salt is evident, but its massively corrosive effect has left traces of rust on any unpainted or untreated surface inside and out. Otherwise it's all down to streamlining, managing airflow and looking good.

There are no exterior mirrors as they're not needed when there's nine miles of salt behind you, though here at Bruntingthorpe it's running on regular alloy wheels and tyres behind which some brakes feature - more of which later. Inside it's red (the exterior is just a wrap) and race car raw, which means a roll cage, shift lights, toggle switches, big belts, a tight-fitting seat and fire extinguishers. Comfort isn't a priority, whereas the cage is, and the Octavia's looks like it could manage a barrel roll or twenty at the 200mph+ speeds this machine is capable of. Useful.

Driving it:

I'm not allowed to drive it; at least not until I've hauled myself out of the car in around ten seconds. That's for safety reasons obviously, and not easy when you've belts on buckled in five places, a seat that's designed to wrap around your ribs and a clip up window net that prevents flailing arms escaping if you should get it spectacularly wrong. If we were at Bonneville it'd be more difficult to get out in that scrutineered time thanks to the requirement for a thicker Nomex and arms strapped to the belts. Dickie Meaden, the driver on the record-breaking day, we salute you.

Suitably impressed with my extraction skills - even if they're more ape fighting out of a cage than Houdini in style - I get to flick the toggle switches and thumb the starter. The 2.0-litre engine fires with very little drama. Sure, it's noisy in the bare cabin, but not quite as rough as you might anticipate given its mighty 600hp output. Achieving that has been a case of adding a massive turbocharger, a bigger intercooler, water injection, additional fuel injectors, race fuel pumps, larger air intakes, a bigger radiator and a re-mapped ECU.

The result is the fastest Octavia in the world, though amusingly the gearbox is borrowed from Skoda's Greenline model. That has longer gearing you see, which is great for Bonneville, but limiting on the two-mile run at Bruntingthorpe. Still, the way the engine devours the first five gears is impressive, shifting them done by way of a gearstick that's more Scania truck than Skoda Octavia, it lengthy in scale and throw and not exactly the last word in precision.

It's the change from fifth to sixth that's frustrating. Ricky reckons that, with the gearing and the limited track size, 160mph is about as quick as the Bonneville car will run today. It proves tantalisingly close too, with the shift up to sixth seeing the speed drop slightly from around 145mph to around 140mph before climbing back up again.

There's something of a lazy point in the otherwise ample pull from the engine, the big turbo not giving its all until the speedo creeps slowly to 155mph. The track runs out quickly after. The temptation to keep the toe in is great, but its tempered by the fact the track is being used for truck driver training in what might be required as additional braking zone should 160mph and beyond be the goal. A speed of 157mph flickered up on the digital dash at one point, but that was to be it for the day. It felt like it was just getting into its stride too, tracking straight and true - even on Bruntingthorpe's less than perfect surface.

What you get for your Money:

If someone at Skoda sat down and did the maths heads would be scratched and the bean-counters would have a fit. That's not the point, and really, as record-breaking cars go the Skoda Octavia is about as cheap as it comes. Running in production class helps, but so too does having a very clever technical team at your disposal with a sizeable parts bin.

Worth Noting

Running on standard wheels and tyres meant the car could have brakes for its UK run. On the salt, on smaller steel wheels - with cool moondiscs - the car ran without front brakes, as Bonneville is not short on run off. And they had a parachute, too. Sadly we didn't get a chance to use that, tempting as it was...

Summary

The Skoda Octavia Bonneville speed car represents everything that's great about silly ideas. Someone in Skoda aimed for 200mph, and the result was far greater than that at 227.080mph. We're just wondering where the special edition model is to celebrate it; surely this is one record worth a 227 limited run special with a tweak in power and a numbered plaque?