The new Skoda Fabia ditches diesel engines

It’s the Geneva Motor Show quite soon. Its show halls look set to be a real-life ‘spot the difference’ puzzle book, with plenty of marginal facelifts revealed thus far. The latest is the Skoda Fabia, in its most up-to-date form here. We think.

Grilles and headlights are always the first place to look, and some little tweaks to their shapes and the addition of LED tech lend the Fabia, in Skoda’s words, a “high-class appearance”. You can now have 18in wheels, too. Perhaps not advisable on what may be predominantly an urban car.

Inside, there are some redesigned instruments and a fancier media system that’ll support whatever permutation of smartphone you wish to plug into it. Grown-up safety tech has descended down to supermini level now, too, with all the blind-spot and high-beam assist systems you could wish for.

There are four engines available, and unlike the outgoing Fabia, none of them are diesel. So you’ve four petrols to choose from, all of them 1.0-litre in size, two of them turbocharged, and ranging from 59 to 108bhp. The most powerful gets a DSG automatic gearbox as an option.

Other touches? The ice-scraper clipped into the fuel filler cap now has a tyre tread depth gauge (why wasn’t that our headline?) and you can have USB charging points in the rear now, too. And if there are any more differences to spot, then we’re afraid we’ve going to have to flick to the answers page to identify them…

Would you have one of these over the new Volkswagen Polo or Seat Ibiza?