The successful VW Group-owned carmaker from the Czech Republic posted the above photo showing the rear end of said Rapid on its Facebook page along with the following caption: "Wait a minute, could this be something completely new?"
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The reason why we're leaving a question mark has to do as much with Skoda's one-style-fits all design strategy, as it has with the fact that this particular model featured a "Fabia" moniker on the tailgate. That's not to say Skoda may have placed the logo there simply to confuse us – which it did…
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As Skoda has only released a rendering so far, we have to take their word for granted when describing the car. Painted in the metallic colors “Corrida Red” and “Steel Grey”, the Rapid Sport rides on 19-inch alloy wheels that are painted in the same colors. The car has an aggressive front end with the redesigned bumper including a spoiler lip and a big air intake and the engine hood sporting two air vents.
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Loosely based on the VW Polo, the Rapid is 4.48 m (176.4 in.) long, 1.71 m (67.3 in.) wide and 1.46 m (57.5 in.) tall. It comes with a capacious 550-liter boot space and according to Skoda, ample room for “up to five persons”.
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Bouguerra's proposal blends the body of the Vision D concept car displayed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show with styling elements from the Rapid, which gets a hatch tailgate revealing a massive boot with 550-litres of space.
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The Czech automaker's sales and marketing boss, Jürgen Stackmann, broke the news to Autocar magazine. He said that the hatchback would be shorter than the Rapid, which itself is a notchback-style sedan with a tailgate that lifts together with the rear window, featuring a "Golf–like rear end".
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Like its sister model the Seat Toledo, the Rapid makes use of on an extended version of the VW Polo's platform and measures 4.48 m (176.4 in.) in length, 1.71 m (67.3 in.) in width and 1.46 m (57.5 in.) in height.
The Czech automaker said that despite the car's compact dimensions, it will "comfortably seat up to five persons" providing ample luggage space.
While we cannot comment on the passenger room yet, the new Skoda that is equipped with a tailgate that lifts together with the rear window has a capacious boot space of 550 litres, which is just shy of the 560 litres offered by the much larger BMW 5-Series Estate.
However, if you're still wondering what the front and rear ends of the car will look like without the craftily positioned decals on the lights, here are some official design sketches and cropped images of the final production model.
First seen in showcar trim as the Mission L concept at last year's Frankfurt Motor Show, the production Rapid will make its first public appearance in Paris this September and hit dealerships across Europe before the end of the year.
Despite its saloon appearance, the rear window lifts together with the boot revealing a capacious 500 liters of space.
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Today, we can share the first scoop inside the new Rapid as our man with the long lens not only caught up with another test car, this time finished in red, but he was also able to come close enough to snag the interior.
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Skoda's engineers simply applied some convincing, but fake, decals on the tail lamps, the top part of the headlamps, and the rear door lines, just to keep our spies on their toes.
Other than that, what you see in these pictures is what European buyers will get when the compact sedan model makes its first public outing at the Paris Motor Show this September before reaching dealerships at the end of the year.
The European market Rapid (Skoda also sells a smaller and unrelated Rapid sedan in India) is the production variant of the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show Mission L Concept.
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Even though they share the same name, the compact-sized notchback is a different model from the smaller India-market Rapid sedan that is based on the VW Polo saloon.
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