Skoda's second best-selling model after the Octavia, the Fabia has reached unit number 4,000,000 since the supermini's start of production back in 1999. At the same time, the manufacturer from Mladá Boleslav where the subcompact car comes to life is celebrating the #500,000 Fabia of the third generation, which has been around since late 2014.
The first-gen model sold until 2007 was produced in roughly 1,790,000 examples, slightly more than its successor available between 2007 and 2014 during which approximately 1,710,000 units rolled off the assembly line. As for the milestone car shown here, it's a more practical Combi version finished in Moon White and built in the high-end Monte Carlo specification.
Although it's heavily related to the SEAT Ibiza and VW Polo, the Skoda Fabia is not an MQB-based product, though it does have some bits and bobs from the group's Modular Transverse Matrix platform combined with the old PQ25 underpinnings. Unlike its two predecessors, the current-gen Fabia sadly can't be had in a hot RS version and the Czech marque has made it clear the hot hatch won't come to life as Skoda is afraid it wouldn't generate enough sales.
The latest updates brought to the Fabia range took place a few months ago at the Geneva Motor Show where Skoda introduced the turbocharged three-cylinder 1.0-liter TSI engine with 110 horsepower. Already available for quite some time on the bigger Octavia, the tiny mill comes to replace the old 1.2-liter TSI and despite being smaller, it actually has an extra 18 pound-feet (25 Newton-meters) of torque, now at 147 lb-ft (200 Nm). At the same time, Skoda says fuel consumption is down by six percent and the engine's weight is 22 pounds (10 kilograms) lower thanks mostly to the adoption of an aluminum crankcase.
Latest sales numbers show deliveries were up by 4.5 percent last month compared to May 2016, with Skoda managing to move 18,600 units. A facelift (spotted above in prototype guise) will likely arrive next year to keep the spacious supermini in high demand until the arrival of an all-new, truly MQB-based model.
