It’s a family stand-off when the latest wagon meets our own.

Price: $74,990

Powertrain: 1984cc four-cylinder turbocharged petrol, 195kW/400Nm. Seven speed direct shift gearbox. All-wheel-drive.

How big: 4902mm long; 1849mm wide; 1482mm wide.

We like: Skoda doing even better what it seems to do best; impressively practical and family/dog-friendly.

Not so much: Naff wheel stylings; rigmarole in wiping previous phone hook ups.

SENSATIONAL spaciousness is a strong selling point of Skoda’s largest car, the Superb station wagon: How could it not be?

Remember how roomy the boot of your grandpop’s Falcadore load-all used to be? Pah. If you want to see truly spacious, Czech out the load space out on a Superb wagon.

The area behind the back seat of our 2016 example, the metallic green car in today’s images, is simply colossal. It’ll swallows anything we care to throw into it; furniture, all the spare bits - including four extra tyres and rims plus tools - when I’m off motor-racing. The sizeable carry cage in which we cart our dogs? Doesn’t even touch the sides pal.

A cage isn’t strictly necessary for pooch movements. Skoda equips all generations of Superb with a roll out screen that covers the area between the top of the rear seats and the roof. It’s made of teeth resistant material (I know, one of our ‘mates’ strove to demonstrate otherwise. But, for ultimate safety’s sake, the cage is better still. Sensible ownership thinking for a sensibly thought out car.

Anyway. You know how Skoda uses a ‘simply clever’ tagline as a selling point? I’d argue that’s my car, too.

I’d been confident one reason why the boot is so roomy is because they (very cleverly) lowered the floor to create extra vertical space. It’s been too beneficial for our consideration; when cage sits just a touch too low, just enough for its door to snag on the lip of the boot opening. My solution is to put it on an old chair cushion, which elevates it enough to create a solution. Smart thinking.

The new Superb wagon, the fourth generation, is even smarter. Incredibly (and perhaps unnecessarily) the new model is a slightly larger car than the last.

Not to point of making it any less handy to drive, but enough for there to be more interior space. You can straightaway tell as the boot is more spacious; and though storage fundamentals are much the same, the compartment has been redesigned so it’s tidier.

And yet it now has a flat floor. The dogs didn’t come for a ride - Beagles shed like no tomorrow - but could just tell they were were impressed. As was I. People always ask ‘what’s your favourite car?’ I tend to always say it’s the logically one I own, a previous-generation Superb wagon. It’s the best car in my world. The new one is ever better.

Same car, different car. Putting old and new together illustrates what’s going on. The latest has been significantly overhauled to keep it fresh, yet there’s still a lot to show they’ve also determined to tidy and polish what went before. You think it’s just about the Skoda emblem now sitting more prominently on the leading edge of the bonnet? There’s so much more detail alteration, right down to a new cut of the roof rail and a nicer new key.

Yet this is progress to what could be construed to be a carefully considered point. Incoming is clearly a subtle aesthetic evolution from its predecessor, but with a slightly cleaner, crisper look to it, dominated by a large octagonal radiator grille.

Yet in size, general shape and silhouette it’s so closely aligned with the previous car you could mis-identify them as twins. For all that, the latest shape is 15 percent more aerodynamic, resulting in an impressive coefficient of drag, just 0.25.

Tweaks to the cabin and improved improved interior quality and technology are more patent. The suite of advanced driver assist safety systems is even more extensive.

The gear shift lever having gone from the transmission tunnel to the steering column, frees up storage space, but it becoming a simplified wand control, is one facet that will split opinion. The central console area is far more useable as result, but is the selector action that demands once down for Drive, twice for Sport with high potential for unconscious inadvertent action into the latter, any superior?

In other respects, though, it’s easy to agree that the interior is better than before. The quality of the fixtures has improved, the new cupholder that appears to be made for one until you see how it folds out into two through a simple action is brilliant.

Beyond all that, there are much bigger and more impressive screens to work with, and while the driving position is highly familiar, you’re perching on a new seat and hanging onto a new look steering wheel. Which appears to have been put on upside down, but hasn’t.

Worth stepping up to? Normally that’s a question that tends to be left to the final paragraph of any assessment, but if you are in the same situation as I, it seems pointless to stretch things out.

What I’d say is that it’s a bit of an air-sucked-through-teeth thing. If you are into ‘value’ station wagons that are highly useful, then the new car is basically in a class of one and is really good. But, then, so was the old. Of the 1.6 million sales since this model name launch, 845,000 were accounted for by the outgoing car. It’s been a giant.

Having in the past dabbled with diesel (worked well, blackened by now dropped CO2 penalties) then a 1.4-litre petrol plug-in hybrid (which side-stepped the penalties, but wasn’t quite right), plus also offered it in elevated Scout form (great idea, but lost when diesel went), the determination to now resolutely zero in on a 2.0-litre petrol engine, four-wheel-drive and a seven-speed direct shift transmission in a lowish-slung road car format might seem a step back. But isn’t. Petrol still sells and this is the one Skoda whose step into full electric seems unlikely.

The diesel was brilliant in this model, but the petrol engine is also a good ‘un. I’ve always been comfortable with it and the new continuing the lineage makes sense. Mine makes 206kW, the latest reduces to 195kW, but could you tell? More obvious on test was improved refinement, slightly better thrift: As one who most often sees returns in the mid-eights, an overall average of 7.6 litres per 100km for the entire driving period was good reading.

Still, what we already have really works well for us. The new is a smoother, quieter, generally slightly more competent car again, but it’s what I expected it to be: Less a giant leap than a carefully considered step forward.

The test provision is the base model, officially designated, but not labelled, the TSi 195kW 4x4. Skoda NZ also intends to add a higher specification Style version. The $9000 premium takes it into a higher price band. Even so, that’s the trim I own. It’s the one I more strongly relate to. If going to go fully large, why not fully embrace the big time experience?

No argument, the entry spec is pretty good. It’s actually richer now than it once was. For instance, the front seats have a massaging function that wasn’t even an option when mine came off the line. They’re also heated and cooled.

Style nonetheless delivers more luxury. The glass roof is a take-or-leave on mine that still comes on the new. I do appreciate the Canton audio, the alloy wheels that are a much nicer look than the overly-fussy plastic cover-enhanced aero types on the Tai. The Style also has an even better seat, gets nicer trim and and, not least, steps up to Dynamic Chassis Control adaptive dampers.

The entry car on standard suspension has a more fluent ride but trades off some handling precision.

The standard fixed rate shocks manage to isolate the cabin from the worst of the road surface beneath, but while the car rests wallow through corners either, the absolute precision and rock-solid stability that comes with DCC is lacking. The entry formula taking 235/45 R18 rubber whereas mine’s on 235/40 R19s will also surely influence.

Of course, the Superb isn't the type of car you'd want to push to its limits. The concept here is of a product that delivers a reassuring and predictable driving experience. In that respect, the TSi is a 10 out of 10. It has long had the feel of being a hugely rewarding long-distance cruiser and nothing at all changes in that respect this time around. Wind and road noise are nicely contained, the DSG transmission is smooth in operation - and you’ll rarely feel the need to override it - and, for the most part, it just saunters along in a style some would call regal. You’ll be happy driving it all day - and maybe all night too, because the new headlamps offer excellent illumination; though at base level you still have to manually dip them.

When we bought the Superb, we wondered if it would fit into our garage. It does, but there’s a lot less room in front of the nose and behind the back end than we enjoyed with previous cars, a Skoda Karoq and, before that, the current shape Subaru Outback. occupied that space.

Being 40mm longer and 5mm taller, if 15mm narrower than previously, the new Superb was even more a snug fit. A long wheelbase - the space between the axles - is a Superb thing. That hasn’t changed at all between the generations, but the body itself is slightly larger.

Skoda is claiming 7mm more headroom in the front and 8mm in the back. You’d think that’d be too negligible to notice, but on the contrary, it’s not. As said, that big USP of cavernous boot space is built upon. There’s 30 litres more with all five seats in play, resulting in a whopping 690-litre figure.Fold the back seats down and there’s an impressive 1920 litres’ capacity.

Speaking of loadings. A hill-hold system, electronic child safety locks, seven airbags, all-round vehicle monitoring with driver assistance (which can slam on the brakes if it detects you’re about to hit something), adaptive cruise control, keyless entry and ignition, dual-wireless phone charging pad, three-zone climate control, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, electric tailgate, ambient cabin lighting and electric driver seat adjustment are standard fare now. As always, the cars come with umbrellas and an ice scraper., but the torch - something I like to to have, but have to admit to hardly ever using - has been divested, more’s the pity. Another new feature is a blackboard duster-like touchscreen cleaning rod to keep finger marks off the central screen, that sites into its own armrest holder.

As is typical, the screen contains many functions, but don’t be concerned about this. Skoda’s the sensible one of the VW Group, remember?

In most ways, the menu structure and on-screen layout is, if anything, simpler and easier to understand than it used to be. There was only one function that initially utterly flummoxed me, and that was how to rid the phone menu of previous users’ devices.

With most set-ups, you simply utilise a ‘remove device’ feature, usually identified by a rubbish bin icon. But not here. No amount of swiping or prodding would work. Just when I’d decided simply clever had become simply exasperating, I found the solution: Simply reboot the entire operating system.

Look below the screen and you’ll see evidence that Skoda hasn’t completely abandoned physical controls. Three little physical rotary dials on the dashboard seems barely enough, but these ‘Smart Dials’ are truly neat idea. Fundamentally, they appear to control the cabin temperature and the stereo volume. In fact, each has up to three functions, initiated in rote at a press of the little screens built into the centre of the controls. These take a lot of the operational strain off the touchscreen.

One work in progress is the level of voice control interaction. Skoda’s idea is for its in-house ‘Laura’ voice assistance, which enables off the same prompt as CarPlay’s Siri (user preference depending on how long you hold down the control) to be the primary conduit. But it doesn’t have much to do for now and won’t until Skoda here can enable connected online services. That’s a work in progress, unlikely to be reconciled for a while. And, when it is, it will enable only on new product.

As is, the car is friendly to devices, with wireless Apple CarPlay plus five USB-C sockets - two each for the front and rear, and an extra one in the rear-view mirror housing.

Station wagons are no longer popular; the big break for Skoda has been the police enlisting the third gen car as a frontline vehicle. That role ensures plenty of public attention - but it really deserves more public ownership.

The current car, like the one before, has punched above its weight; it’s still an excellent all-rounder. A station wagon may not be on the shortlist for many buyers, but the Superb makes for a fabulously practical alternative to an equivalently priced SUV or crossover.

So, even though I’m not in the position to spend up, I’ve still bought in. And perhaps that riled our own hack. Two weeks after the latest moved on, the reversing camera on ours threw a brief hissy fit.