► A new Cupra Leon has arrived
► A PHEV, a 328bhp one and an estate
► Fresh looks and interior
This is the new hot hatch from SEAT’s racier division – say hello to the 2024 Cupra Leon. It’s been tweaked and tucked with a facelift for this year, and quite a substantial one at that. Cupra is using the car and its bigger offering, the Formentor, to establish the brand as champions of progressive and intrepid design over the next few years, with ambitions to be in the US by the end of this decade.
Just as before, the 2024 Cupra Leon will be available either as a hot hatch or a lukewarm estate, though now bristling with fresh engineering and design features to modernise it for the future.
It’s received a new nose to complement an overall revised front end, along with redesigned taillights and a revisited cabin to match. There are also new engines available from the wider Volkswagen Group family, plus a few bits of trick engineering like a torque splitter to up its sportier side.
Want to learn more? Read on to find out everything you need to know about the 2024 Cupra Leon.
Cupra’s new design language
For the Leon’s redesign, Cupra said it wanted to go bold with a style that ‘not all will like but some will love’. We’ll leave judgement of it up to you, but what we can see is a new shark-nose-like front end with large vertical deflectors flanking each side of a big mesh grille. The overall sportier mien is amplified by the angularity of the sunken LED headlights, within which are three additional LED triangles. Straight lines only here.
Around the back of the car, a more muscular rear bumper complete with quad copper-style exhausts and a big diffuser arguably establishes a more aggressive stance, though the eyes are drawn first to the new rear-lighting signature. A light bar is still present to connect the two taillights, as was the case with the outgoing version, though it’s now finished with an illuminated Cupra badge front and centre. Oh, and don’t forget the faux carbon spoiler.
What about the interior?
Yep, that’s been given a makeover, too. The updated Leon will no doubt have an air of familiarity to those well-versed in the interior designs of VW group cars. Its centre console has been sharpened and streamlined in a similar way to the new Audi A3, though it no doubt has a distinctive Cupra flair to it.
A mood of modernity and progression runs throughout, with 3D parametric patterns among other tactile surfaces. Cupra is also pushing an agenda of sustainability with the new Leon and the Formentor, using 73% recycled microfibre in the textile upholstery of the seats or ‘environmentally conscious’ leather.
The top-end, faux-carbon-backed CUPBucket race seats on offer look and feel as though they might’ve been plucked from the Audi RS6 GT – our initial thoughts were that they might be too much seat for the car, but we’ll have to report back when we’ve spent some time in them on the road. A rather enormous 12.9-inch infotainment display is also available, along with a 12-speaker Sennheiser audio system.
Powertrains?
The Cupra Leon engine line-up has also been revised, now with a few extra hybrid options. Bottom-spec cars get a 147bhp 1.5-litre TSI petrol, paired with a six-speed manual gearbox. Moving up, there’s a 2.0-litre variant on offer that produces around 295bhp, hooked up to a VW Group seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. In estate format, the Leon can be spec’d with either a 2.0-litre 204bhp TSI engine, or a range-topping 328 bhp unit to turn it into a junior performance monster and the most powerful Cupra ever.
With this engine, the Leon will also be fitted with torque-splitting technology to improve turn-in and agility through corners by sending power to the outside wheel to promote oversteer. Get out of shape, and it’ll send power to the inside wheel to straighten you out again.
If you’d rather spec your car with a dash of electrification, there are plenty of options on offer. Cupra includes a mild hybrid 1.5-litre TSI in the line-up, complete with a 48V starter-generator and 48V lithium-ion battery for greater efficiency. If you’d rather a plug-in hybrid, there are 201bhp and 268bhp versions on offer, with an electric range of 62 miles, according to Cupra.
UK prices for the new Leon haven’t yet been revealed, but we should receive them by the summer time while new cars are due by Autumn. We’ll report back here when we have them.