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VW CEO Winterkorn happy with rebounding Seat, Skoda

Martin Winterkorn is a happy man: Volkswagen is putting up big numbers in North America, its latest field of dreams, Audi, is breaking records every month, there are exciting cars in the pipeline - from Bugatti down to the XL1, Porsche's digestion continues, and now Skoda and especially Seat are turning in no-questions performance.
It seems Skoda has been on the ups for years, making the most of keen pricing and modern redesigns of the chassis and tech it gets handed down from big brothers VW and Audi. Winterkorn predicts the Czech brand will just about double its 2010 sales by 2018, going from 762,000 to 1.5 million.
Seat, on the other hand, wasn't just on the hotseat a year-and-a-half ago, phrases like "uncertain future" - code for "possible demise" - were rumbling in the background. A new CEO was brought in, new money and new models were thrown against the wall, and the efforts have stuck. The Spanish brand has hit three strong chords with Winterkorn, with increased sales, strong performance in China and anticipated models due. If this keeps up there won't be much left for him to do but, a la Alexander the Great, break down and cry with no worlds left to conquer.

New Skoda Octavia, cast in the same mold, arrives full of new features

There's no reason a one-trick pony can't be an entertaining success - you've just really got to like that one trick. And while we're not saying that the new offerings from Škoda are one-dimensional, we are saying that it's a good thing we like the Czech brand's new design language; line up the new Octavia next to the Rapid and you'll need to know the details or the sizing chart to tell them apart.
The Octavia is the compact segment offering, but this larger third-generation comes packed with lots of new features. It is 90 millimeters longer and 45 mm wider than the previous car, with a wheelbase 108 mm longer, so it offers what Škoda says is more interior length, knee room and rear headroom than any other car in the segment. The hatchback opening at the rear hides a trunk that can hold 590 liters. For all that, it is up to 225 pounds lighter than the second-generation Octavia.
Four gasoline and four diesel engines will litter the options sheet, the most powerful of them the 1.8 TSI with 177 horsepower, the most frugal among them the 1.6 TDI GreenLine with 109 hp that gets 69 miles per gallon. All but the entry-level engines can be fitted with stop/start and brake regeneration, and a natural gas powerplant will be coming later. A hotted-up Octavia RS is also down the line.

Watch Skoda's Mikkelsen get quizzed while running a rally stage

If there's one trait all motorsports drivers have, it's an excellent ability to multitask. Sure, the pilots need to be able to keep an eye on the course and keep their vehicles pointed in the right direction. But that's not all.
Drivers also need to be in constant contact with either a navigator, a spotter or a pit chief while simultaneously making sure their car doesn't go supernova on the course. Skoda recently put driver Andreas Mikkelsen's multitasking skills to the test by giving him a pop quiz while he was slinging his IRC rally car around the Millbrook race track.
With questions covering topics ranging from rally history to import/export trivia, Mikkelson had his work cut out for him, but he handles the rapid-fire Q&A like a champ. Well, except for that question about Ukrainian pork. You can check out the video for yourself below.