Ever since it was acquired by VW, Skoda’s task and place in the market has been to allow the sale of Volkswagen-esque cars at lower prices with more emphasis on saving money and practicality. However, it seems that said approach won’t cut it any more, and the Czech manufacturer will be shifting its future focus more towards design than it had previously done so.

Skoda’s recent concepts all feature a lot of design work (they’re visibly trying and it shows), most notably with that styling language preview, the Vision C. It’s said to set the tone for the rest of the range, and we already see its imprint in the all-new Fabia (albeit very faintly).

AutoExpress builds on this view with a recent report. It spoke with Senior Skoda Exterior designer, Marko Jevtic, about the Vision C who explained “the design of this car was done many years ago, but it does produce some key elements for cars that are in the pipeline and on their way to production.”

He went on to say “we will put even more attention to the design than we used to. The practicality before was maybe a bit too present.”

Interestingly, Jevtic will steer his team in a more traditional design direction, apparently. In regards to designing everything on a computer, he says “I do not believe in that process. Computers can mislead you, but to have things firmly under control I believe you have to have a physical model.”

Let’s now see how all of this materializes, especially if the nice-looking Vision C (pictured) is actually an older design and therefor doesn’t completely illustrate this new direction, even if it in and of itself is quite radical compared to previous Skodas.

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