Your least favourite driving manoeuvre? I'd hazard a guess that reversing into a tight parallel parking space figures pretty high in the top five. True, turning across a fast-moving A-road from a country lane will always have its nerve-splintered advocates. And passing a visibly swaying articulated lorry on a motorway during a downpour is bound to be there or thereabouts. But for sheer day-to-day, knuckle-whitening antagonism and near-guaranteed hot flushes, attempting to back into a slot only marginally larger than your car, with waiting traffic piled up impatiently to the rear, is the people's chartbuster.

The new Skoda Superb knows this, which is why it does the job for you. Seriously. Herewith, in the packaging of a deluxe but startlingly cheap (relatively speaking) mile-long limousine, Skoda presents the self-parking car. We have seen cars that will, on request, electronically monitor the size of the gap you're thinking about occupying and let you know whether, in theory, the car will fit inside it. (Seen and been slightly underwhelmed by them, in the main, finding them far too cautious in today's overcrowded urban context, where parking often needs to be a victory for determination over mere maths.) Here, the technology strides forward to provide a vehicle that, having measured the space for size, then steers backwards into it so that you don't have to.

Neat, no? Although we should quickly point out that, at this stage in the technology's development, it's not an entirely solo operation. You can't yet jump out and leave your Superb to it. You remain responsible for the accelerator and,still more importantly, the brake. Turning the steering wheel, though (the hard bit, people tend to find), becomes the domain of a cunningly assembled Czech wiring system, which, one is happy to report, is quite good at it. At least, while I was with the car, it didn't once get about three-quarters of the way in, realise it had overcooked it, swear loudly, and then come back out before trying again.

So a major advance, then, in the relationship between car and driver and, equally importantly, between driver and other road-users. But it's on the wrong car, surely. Stately, grand, whisper-quiet, the Superb is a teak-clad, leather armchaired gentleman's club on wheels. It gets up to cruising speeds while barely drawing breath. It taps back into Skoda's pre-war heritage, to a time, now almost unimaginable, when this manufacturer was, essentially, Limos R Us - before, in other words, the state got hold of it and made it concentrate on building the Communist junk-buckets that would prove to be the staple of all car-based Western comedy routines in the final quarter of the last century. The VW group's late 20th-century takeover of Skoda was a dark day for stand-up comedians.

Now, one can think of countless places in which hands-free parking would come into its own. Polish plumbers in white vans, recently tested teenagers in pimped hatchbacks, bleary minicab drivers at the ends of all-night shifts, swollen 4x4s driven by hyperventilating school-runners - all of these would be convincing target areas for a system proposing relief from the burden of backing into a skimpy space under pressure.

In the Superb, on the other hand, parking is clearly something that you will be paying your chauffeur to do. You, meanwhile, will be thumbing through a back number of Country Life in the executive splendour of the rear cabin, where there is more legroom than in the average municipal swimming pool on a quiet Monday afternoon. And there is no chauffeur in the world with any pride in his craft who is going to respond well to the suggestion that he might need a little electronic help with getting a car alongside the kerb. Even hint as much, and, in the ensuing conflagration, you are likely to end up wearing his peaked cap - and not necessarily on your head.

Nice car, though. Superb, you might say, if Skoda hadn't already presumptuously said it for you. But note how the gradual reduction of driving's burden that began, not all that many years ago, with power steering and electric windows, now extends to encompass parking up. It is perfectly plausible that, in the cars of the future, driving will be something that none of us get involved in, even chauffeurs. Journeys will be accomplished entirely by the car, while we lie in the back doing Brain Training on our Nintendos or distracting our children. Is that good? Not if you quite like driving. And not if your chauffeur quite likes it, too.

Top speed: 155mph

Acceleration: 0-62 in 6.6 seconds

Average consumption: 28.2mpg

CO2 emissions: 238 g/km

Eco rating: 2/10

One careful owner: Duke of Kent

On the stereo: Radio 4

In the glovebox: Bath Olivers

Bound for: Balmoral

Buy it because: your chauffeur requests it

Marks out of 10: 8

Price: £26,675