Yeti will give Skoda boost

But it's not a Himalayan bigfoot. Yeti is the name for Skoda's first serious compact SUV and it was targeted at the Frankfurt Motor Show as the most important model yet for the Czech brand as it looks to build a serious following down under.

"This is exactly the car we need to break through with younger, funky buyers. It's going to give us a point of difference," says the head of Skoda in Australia, Matthew Weisner. "This is the one I think will take us to another level.

It's even more important than Octavia." The Yeti only hit the scene in Europe in August and that means a slight delay for Australia while the paperwork and pricing is done, but it will land next year and the starting price will be below $30,000.

Its obvious rivals are the Subaru Forester and Volkswagen Tiguan, but it will come with both front and all-wheel drive, as well as with some serious off-road ability. "We would like to think we can get it here for the second half of 2010.

But we are still finalising the detail on homologation," Weisner says. "The basic mechanical package is similar to the Octavia, but running the 4Motion system. “And the Skoda engineers have done their own work to ensure it is a much better off-roader than you would normally expect in a compact SUV. “That's its point of difference."

Skoda is deliberately targeting a front-drive Yeti as a price leader, although it plans for a spread of models including petrol and diesel engines, manual and DSG gearboxes. "We've got to be around the Volkswagen Tiguan from four-wheel drive point of view, and for the two-wheel drive car it has to be under $30,000. And we equip cars well, and we wouldn't change that, so we'd hold the value propostion."

Weisner is confident the Yeti will be an easier sell than the baby Roomster, which has radical looks but is hard to sell in Australia's compact class. "If you look at it, Yeti is a fairly funky but typical compact SUV. Roomster is quite a radical sort of design, and it's not easy to position in Australia," he says.

"Yeti will sit perfectly comfortably in that growing compact SUV segment. And that's now stronger than the medium segment." Weisner believes the Yeti could eventually become Skoda's best seller, even bettering the Octavia in showrooms.

"We'll probably do around 1000 Octavias this year. I think it will give a similar or greater contribution. It will give us a big lift in a relatively short period of time," he says. "If we can do 1400 or 1500 cars in total this year, with the Superb now in the range, Yeti will make a hell of a difference to our total sales."