Who is the new Skoda buyer? Once seen as a budget Volkswagen brand, Skoda spills on who is buying its cars and why that's all about to change

Australian Skoda owners are educated, they also have money, but don’t like to show off, according to the brand’s local boss. That’s all about to change, he says.

Skoda Australia’s brand director Michael Irmer won’t be drawn into talking about who buys an Audi or a VW, or Porsche nor any other car from elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group, but he’s more than happy to go into detail about the type of person who wants a Skoda.

“Skoda has a different clientele than normal,” he said said. 

“It takes a different person to buy something which is not common, which not everybody else has. We call them independent thinkers. 

“They also have fairly high incomes and extremely high education levels. This demographic wants something else. They actually have the money for a big badge, they just think it’s smarter to go for a Skoda and they want the full kit. They want to have all the goodies but they don’t want to be seen as a show off. 

“What Skoda stands for is family orientation, safe, spacious and practical. Being accessible is very important.”

You’d expect the head of a car brand to say something like that. It’s surprising he didn’t throw in a line about Skoda owners also being “extremely good-looking people” as well. 

But car companies have access to a huge amount of customer data and spend enormous amounts on research and analysis into buying habits. So, if anybody knows who’s buying their cars, it’s the car companies. Most of the time, anyway.

So, seeing Skoda as an ‘alternative’ car brand to the well-trodden mainstream such as Ford, Mazda, Toyota and even the lower-priced models from BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz is valid. In the same way that Volvo, Peugeot, Citroen and the now defunct Saab attract buyers who seem to make a conscious decision to buy into those brands and shun the more common premium choices, Skoda owners possibly do, too.

What you wouldn’t expect a car company executive to say after calling its buyers smart, monied-up but humble, is that all this is going to change. 

After what appears to be some major soul searching, Skoda is undergoing a global image change along with new styling of its models to coincide with its transition to electric vehicles and with that the company hopes to appeal to a wider set of buyers.  

“You may have heard about the evolution of the brand with its new design language Modern Solid?” Mr Irmer said.

Car brands love naming their design eras. They all do it. Mazda had Kodo, Ford had Kinetic and Skoda’s upcoming new style is called Modern Solid. Only car company executives and nerds like car journalists pay attention to the terms, normal people have better things to do, but you should know that with this new change of direction will come different Skodas and buyers.

“There’s more news to come in the next couple of months,” Mr Irmer said. 

“It will become more mainstream, I feel, than what it was in the early days with these intelligent, independent thinkers who were the early adopters and the core group of our customers. But now with the portfolio of SUVs we have we’re reaching a much broader audience.

“You go back from time to time and reclaibate the brand and what it stands for - you never throw it out and start all over. It wasn’t wrong so there’s no need to do that. So we just evolve it.

“Skoda will be positioned more upmarket than before, but it will remain attainable.”

Time will tell if Skoda's decision to change direction from a bit quirky and niche to having a broader appeal is the right one.