These sketches make the new Skoda Octavia vRS look angry

Apparently, one in every five Octavias sold in Skoda’s core markets of Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland is a vRS model. This is most certainly good news for those of us who enjoy a drive – Skoda simply can’t afford to kill its range-topping performance model.

By the looks of these design sketches, it’s about to get a whole lot better looking too. These are Skoda’s first teasers of the new Mk4 vRS before its official unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show in March - where we'll likely also see its VW Golf GTI cousin - and there’ll be big alloys and black design features for sure. 

Perhaps the best news is that, like on the standard Octavia, the split front headlights of old have been consigned to the parts bin.

In other big news, Skoda has confirmed that the Octavia vRS will debut with a 242bhp plug-in hybrid powertrain in both the estate and hatch/saloon versions. There’s no official confirmation, but we can assume that the 2.0-litre diesel and 2.0-litre petrol engines will live on alongside said PHEV setup.

So, twenty years after the debut of the first Octavia vRS, how do you think this one will stack up, Internet?