Full confession on police deal

Skoda’s senior management has spilled the beans on exactly how many Superbs are heading into NZ police service.

CASE closed: Skoda itself has shared key information, never disclosed locally, in respect to the police buy-up of Superb station wagons as front-line cruisers – exactly how many are coming and over what period.

In a release it sent out from its headquarters in Mlada Boleslav to celebrate to contract, the Czech marque has identified that s contract always acknowledged to be the country’s biggest Government fleet deal is to supply 2000 cars over the next four years.

It also suggests this means Skoda is replacing every primary response vehicle currently on the beat, if  not every passenger model police run.

The value of the deal remains unknown and is tricky to even guess at - the police have chosen engines in different tune to those represented in the public domain, have chosen a mix of front and four-wheel-drive cars and the trim is also less plush than that of the public-access $73,000 Sportline wagon.

There’s also the factor of this being a fleet deal; Government seeks discounts of up to 35 percent for bulk buy-ins, according to industry scuttlebutt. 

Still, even if they were paying just somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 per unit … well, you can understand why it’s become the subject of an international release. It’s conceivably an $80 million deal.

For its part, the Czech brand – part of the giant VW Group – is delighted that the local rozzers have chosen the Superb to replace various generations of Commodore sedans, station wagons and utilities from Holden. Interestingly, the now defunct Australian maker was never able to divulge the exact count of vehicles it supplied to police, citing confidentiality.

The Skoda release quotes a senior management figure, Martin Jahn, board member for sales and marketing.

His comment: “The Superb Combi demonstrates its reliability and robustness every day as a police and emergency vehicle in numerous countries. We are delighted that the New Zealand police also appreciate these qualities and will be relying on Škoda vehicles in their daily work for years to come.”  

Skoda’s release also adds extra information about how the tender evaluation ran and the competition.

Though it doesn’t specifically name names, it identifies that seven vehicle manufacturers took part in the tender with a total of 27 different models; 12 vehicles were shortlisted and tested by the law enforcement officers under real-life conditions.

“The selection criteria included performance and braking, emissions and serviceability as well as total running costs. The Skoda Superb came out on top overall; its driving characteristics, safety and space were particularly convincing.”

The factory says the first 100 are expected to be in service by the end of June, with nearly 400 more to follow by the end of the year. It says delivery of all 2000 Superbs is scheduled within a maximum of four years.

The brand notes that police and emergency services in other countries also rely on Škoda models in their daily operations.

It is represented in the fleets of 30 European authorities, including Austria, Serbia, Croatia, Portugal, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The Superb and Octivia are the most common choices; in the UK, the compact Scale is also in police service.

In its home country, the Czech Republic, the carmaker has delivered more than 20,000 vehicles to the police and the Ministry of the Interior since 1993; which presently mainly runs Octavias, Superbs and the Kodiaq.  

The latter, a medium SUV, is understood to be under evaluation now as a police dog handler vehicle.

The local police Superbs includes several prototype features for field testing, including real-time location tracking and internal Perspex barriers to protect officers.