New Skoda Superb Estate is very large

Good news for those with a love of umbrellas and the need to transport an enormous quantity of matter: the new Skoda Superb Estate is here.

And it's predictably vast. We never considered the old Superb estate exactly short on room, but the new, third-generation version - spun, of course, from the VW Group's ubiquitous MQB platform - is bigger still.

First drive: new Skoda Superb hatch

Skoda claims the Superb wagon is class-leading for space, though it's unclear exactly what class that is. With a maximum bootspace of almost 2000 litres seats-down, we're assuming ‘supertanker class'.

Seats up, the boot will swallow 660 litres of stuff, around 27 litres more than the outgoing Superb estate. And yes, don't worry, you still get an umbrella secreted within each front door.

As per the MkIII Superb hatch, the estate sees its wheelbase swell by 8cm, meaning more head- and legroom inside for even the gangliest passengers. If your kids can't fit in the back of a Superb, you're probably in the market for an articulated lorry of some sort.

Though Skoda hasn't announced engines, expect them to follow the lead of the Superb hatch. That means a bunch of diesels - starting with a 118bhp 1.6-litre and rising to a 187bhp two-litre - and somewhat fewer petrols, the most frugal being the 1.4-litre TSI, which makes 148bhp.

No word yet on whether the 276bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol will find its way, as with the hatch, into a 4WD Superb estate, but we're rather hoping so: painted black and debadged, that could be quite the street sleeper.

Prices for the more sensible Superb estates are expected to start a little over £21,000, a mighty reasonable amount for such a lot of car. Could this be, in the most literal sense, all the car you'll ever need?