Cars aren’t usually my thing. I’ve always been more into talk than torque. If it gets me from A to B (and possibly through a drive-thru window on a Sunday morning) then I’m happy.
I’ve just never really been able to bring myself to care about fuel efficiency or safety features. In fact, the last time I had rise to buy a ride, I had but one question… what colours does it come in?
Although I grant you airbags are probably more important to my driving future than metallic paint.
But move over, Quartz Grey exterior, because I’ve got a new reason to shop!
And that reason is SmartLink. Long story short, it turns your car into a smart phone that LISTENS AND REACTS TO YOUR EVERY COMMAND. I use capitals here because being able to text flirt from the driver’s seat seems as good a reason to shout as any.
And text flirt I did when I took the new ŠKODA Fabia (with SmartLink, of course) for a test-drive for a few days.
I also made calls, organised my calendar, drove to interviews and kept on top of the weather. The Apple CarPlay technology which drives the SmartLink feature can also fire up your Spotify playlists (in fact, you can check out the very driving tunes I seat-danced to here) and give you directions via the voice command on your smartphone.
My favourite thing to do was have my Fabia read my text messages. I made my sister send me Bill Murray quotes just so I could have the car read them aloud and I could be surrounded by Bill Murray on all sides. Who doesn’t want that in their life?!
The car has some other other nifty features, of course. The optional panoramic roof comes to mind – it’s genuinely bigger than my kitchen bench – and an amazing diversion for those in the back seat. Like a big screen TV only you’re seeing the real world instead of re-runs of Neighbours.
It also has a boot big enough to fit three adult comedians if you fold them up like origami cranes (tried and tested) as well as a cup holder than turns into a phone holder. It really is the little things.
But despite all this, it really was the SmartLink feature I couldn’t get enough of. And the ŠKODA Fabia is one of the first and only cars on the market to have it.
It works for me because my car is essentially my office – complete with discarded coffee cups and scrunched-up bits of paper. I genuinely reveled in being able to text and call people with naught but my voice. A) It saved a lot of time. And B) I felt a little like Oz talking to Dorothy through the big magic wall. And that, my friends, is a good and powerful feeling.
The ŠKODA Fabia starts at $15,990.
This is a sponsored post by ŠKODA Australia. All opinions expressed by the author are authentic and written in their own words.
