“Of course, the design has also moved in a more modern direction,” he adds. Unlike most people, he’s already well acquainted with the new car’s looks. Immediately, he adds some driving impressions to his opinion of the car’s looks. “Compared to its predecessor, the car feels more sporty, yet safer as a whole.”

It turns out in the end that as a driver, the thing he enjoys the most is the modern driving assists offered by the fourth generation OCTAVIA. “For example, these include the Travel Assist system.”

Even though driving is his job, he still enjoys it, and especially so with the new OCTAVIA. Still, Luboš admits that the job of test technician is hard. “We have to meet the strictest safety criteria,” he explains. Safety plays a key role from the initial phases of testing, when the cars are driven on the closed tracks and proving grounds – the tests include high-speed driving and testing driving assists.

These tests have to be done on a closed track, as all the driving assists must be reliable before the cars are driven on public roads. “We have to be focused and alert all the time,” Luboš says. While testing on public roads, he has to obey the traffic rules, watch out for other cars and still be able to monitor how the car and its systems behave in various situations.

Test technicians also have to make sure that the still-top-secret car is not revealed by mistake. “ŠKODA’s security department approves the test routes,” Luboš explains, and goes on to say that the main security tactic is to keep the car moving at all times. This makes it hard for any spy photographers to take pictures of details hidden under the camouflage.