You probably don’t know anything about this car if you live in North America, but the Skoda Octavia RS is a very important “hot hatch” in Europe. More specifically, in Central Europe, it seems like every salesman drives an Octavia and dreams of one day owning the RS. The Mk4 generation of the Octavia RS is fairly new and quite interesting. However, it doesn’t have the performance upgrades of its sister car, the VW Golf GTI, an issue which is rectified here with an awesome widebody kit from digital artist Zephyr Designz.
We bet that a lot of people wish a widebody Octavia RS would be built, but that hasn’t really happened. Firstly, neither Volkswagen nor Skoda builds bespoke bodywork for its performance vehicles. This car would need custom-made rear doors and different quarter panels, much like the Audi RS3 gets.
Doing the front end would be a little easier since new fenders would just bolt on, though you can’t ignore the modified suspension that would have to be installed in order to compensate for wider tracks.
Zephyr’s vision of a widebody Skoda Octavia RS is based on the Mk4 generation, the latest one, which went into production back in 2020. His mods and video editing style are quite similar to another rendering artist, Hycade.
At the front, we get a brand-new bumper that’s a little bit more aggressive. Large vents appear on the sides of the headlights, presumably channeling air to the brakes. A deep chin spoiler is installed, and the blacked-out grille is more prominent.
Down the sides, this performance vehicle sports the obvious front fender flares, a smooth RS7-liker rear end, and bulky side skirts. The mods culminate at the back of the vehicle, where a 911 GT3-style swan neck racing wing is present. No self-respecting rendering artist can resist adding something Japanese, which is why the stance of this Skoda has a distinct JDM flavor, looking like a wide version of an Enkei T6R or something along those lines.
As for the engine, the widebody Octavia RS claims to have 500 hp, double the output of a stock model at 245 hp. It sounds unreal, but plenty of people have gotten that power out of the 2.0 TSI. It’s just a matter of putting that much down using only the front wheels or finding a way to install the Golf R rear differential.
Real facts about the Octavia 4 RS and its future
It is likely never going to be a widebody Octavia 4 RS build, not unless JP Performance makes it happen. Certain European countries don’t allow increasing the width of your vehicle, and the German TUV requires every single mod you do to be inspected, which is why extreme changes are usually found on much more expensive vehicles.
So what about from the factory? Well, Skoda currently offers three engines with the Octavia RS: 2.0 TDI diesel with 200 hp, 1.4 TSI plug-in hybrid with 245, and 2.0 TSI with 245 hp (European specs). The car could easily be fitted with a 300 hp version of that last engine, which has a different turbocharger, but it seems Skoda is more interested in developing electric cars.
In fact, this is likely to be the last generation of both the Octavia and the RS, at least in Europe. Volkswagen is going to show a Golf electric concept soon, the Golf being closely related to the Octavia. As for the 2.0 TSI, we know it’s living on borrowed time.
We don’t know when the last Octavia RS will be sold with TSI or TDI. However, sister brand Cupra (SEAT) will launch its last ICE car in 2025. New emissions regulations are coming in, after all.
