Skoda Octavia vRS breaks 200 mph at Bonneville

Skoda Octavia vRS breaks 200mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats

A slightly modified Skoda Octavia vRS has broken the 200mph barrier at Bonneville Salt Flats, driven by EVO journo Richard Meaden.

You can tell just how far Skoda has come from its days as makers of mobile skips when they can justify going out to play at the Bonneville Salt Flats with a Skoda Octavia vRS, just for the glow the outing will cast on its range.

But they haven’t just gone to play, they’ve also achieved the quite remarkable feat of taking a modestly modified Octavia vRS to 202.15mph, which is going to do no harm whatsoever in drawing attention to the very appealing vRS cars in the Skoda range.

To drag an extra 50mph plus out of Octavia vRS did necessitate a tweak or three, but nothing overly dramatic. The ride height was lowered by 80mm and a race-prepared intercooler was attached to a new sub-frame.

In the oily bits department Skoda engineers fitted a new Garrett turbo the size of a small dustbin, which produces 30+ PSI of boost and, thanks also to the help of high octane race fuel, means the Octavia vRS had something in the region of 500bhp to play with.

EVO journalist Richard Meaden piloted the Bonneville Skoda to 195.69mph on its very first outing on the Salt Flats, and managed to get past the 200mph barrier to hit a top speed of 202.15mph on his sixth run.

The plan is now to see if they can get the Octavia vRS past the 216mph world record for a 2.0 litre production car before Bonneville Speed Week comes to an end.

Robert Hazelwood, of Skoda UK, said of the achievement:

Months of rigorous planning, testing and preparation have all been worthwhile. At 13:24 on Monday 15th August, we took our Octavia vRS past the 200 mph barrier. The entire team has done an outstanding job. Our special thanks go to Richard on an incredible drive.
This marks another exciting milestone in the brand’s motorsport achievements and is a great way to celebrate 10 years of the vRS range and commemorate 110 years of ŠKODA’s participation in motorsport.

We think that as a result of this impressive speed feat there’s a very good chance we’ll be seeing a limited edition Skoda Octavia vRS ‘Bonneville’ sometime soon.

Well done to all involved.