Turn the knob to select "destination", choose "airport" ... and salvation is at hand. The only difficult bit was a U-turn, under orders from our dashboard navigator, which I somehow accomplished, nosing across four lanes of crawling, bad-tempered traffic.
Twenty minutes later, I was pulling up outside the airport to hand back my Skoda Octavia vRS, conscious that, not too long ago, mentioning the Czech car-maker and sat nav in the same breath would have been considered by many as the latest in a long line of jokes about the marque.
But the days of Communist-era, ultra-basic motoring have been banished forever, and this latest high-performance car will help further burnish the image of Skoda, much enhanced under Volkswagen's stewardship.
Sat nav is only one of the technical tricks up the sleeve of the new VRS, but a much-welcomed one after both route book and map failed myself and navigator during the Press launch in Spain of the paciest of the Octavias.
I had road-tested the previous vRS, in estate form, and enjoyed it immensely, so I was eager to find out how the new version measured up.
Octavia
The exterior lines of the latest Octavia are chunkier and more purposeful than its predecessor, and the vRS sports deeper bumpers, with a large air intake in the lower half of the front one, a new boot spoiler and 17in alloys, plus door mirror-mounted indicators, which allow a smoother, seamless appearance for the front wings.
The inside story is one of attention to detail, with features that include silver and black half-leather sports seats, a leather-trimmed steering wheel and gear-knob and the ubiquitous aluminium-effect instrument panel trim.
Dashboard plastics are good quality, pleasantly tactile and an improvement on the previous car, while switches and instruments are logically placed and easy to use. But the real test of the vRS, over its predecessor, is in performance... both in power and handling.
Two days' driving on a mix of winding country roads in the hills heading towards Andorra and virtually empty rural stretches of motorway convinced me that the newcomer brings something new to the vRS party.
Handles
It's the most powerful production Skoda yet and handles with taut precision, the well set-up steering and lowered suspension inspiring confidence.
With a six-speed manual gearbox directing 200bhp to the front wheels from the turbo-charged petrol engine, the car packs loads of punch throughout the rev range and has plenty of braking power to rein in those willing horses.
Bags of fun then, but what about the practicalities? The cabin is pretty roomy and the rear hatch opens to reveal a luggage-swallowing boot - a couple of overnight bags looked pretty lonely in there.
But the real clincher for the Octavia vRS - which is on sale on Monday - is price. At £17,500 for the hatchback there's a lot of bang for your buck, and it is little wonder that the vRS (both Octavia and Fabia) accounts for 10 per cent of Skoda's UK sales.
A couple of days driving is just about enough to get the measure of a car, and I've tried hard to think of something I really didn't like about the vRS, without success. Of course, in an ever-more image-conscious society, motoring's true badge snobs will continue to take some convincing.
They don't know what they're missing.
