► Cupra’s take on the Leon is a proper hooligan
► Top-spec hatchback has a colossal 296bhp…
► … all of which goes through the front wheels
Cupra’s seen some intense change over the past six years. Before becoming a purveyor of angry-faced, copper-clad, performance-focused EVs, it was building stuff like this – faster, shoutier versions of SEAT’s (rather average) family cars.
The Leon is one of the final remnants of Cupra’s bygone era – the other being the aging Ateca SUV. In many ways, though, I feel the Leon is wearing its years better than the Ateca, not least because Cupra has now updated the car with some fresh styling, a revised interior and a reworked chassis. We’re off to a good start, then.
But there’s a problem. Cupra has long lived in the shadow of its Volkswagen Group stablemates – and its hot hatchbacks have never really made large enough strides away from their in-house rivals to make you champion them on their merits alone.
Indeed, back when Cupra was still a badge on the rump of a spicy SEAT, they were sold on price. They were always cheaper than the equivalent fast Volkswagen, despite sharing all the same equipment – and that made young hoodlums flock to the brand in droves.
But these days, there’s hardly anything in it. The Leon’s only £1,300 cheaper than the equivalent Golf GTI Clubsport – and just £3,600 cheaper than the four-wheel drive Audi S3, which is punchy for a car brand that’s barely been around as long as the coronavirus.
So, is there any tangible reason why you should buy the Cupra Leon over its mechanically identical rivals? Or is it little more than a slightly less expensive GTI Clubsport for those with a copper fetish? Scroll down to find out what I made of it.
At a glance
Pros: 300hp model is rapid, exciting handling, clever front differential
Cons: touchscreen isn’t as good as VW’s, hatch only has front-wheel drive
What’s different?
The most obvious difference is the styling. So, there’s a more sharkish front end (with a new cheese-grater grille), a squarer backside (with a quad-exit exhaust, obviously finished in copper) and some sunken LED headlights that make the Leon look like it’s had a harder paper round than it has.
Cupra has also adopted some of the changes Volkswagen introduced on the facelifted Golf, such as the same 12.9-inch touchscreen. The Leon’s cabin also gets a smattering of new, eco-friendly materials. The seats, for example, are trimmed in 73% recycled microfibre, so you can feel slightly better about yourself when you fart and crackle away from a junction at full noise.
What are the specs?
Cupra’s toybox is the same as Volkswagen’s so, if you’ve read our various Golf reviews, these figures are going to look very familiar. I’ll focus on the top-spec model, because I think that’s the only one worth having. The lowlier Cupra Leons – with their 1.5-litre engines – are perfectly adequate. But if all you want is a practical 1.5-litre family hatchback from the Volkswagen Group, you’d be an idiot to opt for the Cupra over the Skoda Octavia.
The VZ2 is a completely different beast, though. It has a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that chucks 296bhp and 295lb ft of torque at the front wheels. That’s a lot. For reference, the Ford Focus ST Edition has a mere 276bhp (and that’s hardly a slow car) while the four-wheel drive Golf R barely outguns the Leon with 328bhp.
In fact, the only other front-wheel drive hot hatch that can out-horsepower the Leon is the 325bhp Honda Civic Type R – and that requires a weapons-grade arsenal of clever chassis hardware to stop it from torque steering into the verge every time you tickle the loud pedal. It doesn’t come cheap, either. The Civic is £5,000 more expensive than this top-spec Leon.
The result? Well, providing you can get its power onto the tarmac cleanly (which you can’t on anything other than a bone-dry June afternoon) the Leon will dash from 0–62mph in 5.7 seconds and keep pulling until it clatters into its 155mph top speed limiter. That’s only 0.3 seconds behind the Civic Type R, for which we’ve got Cupra’s savage dual-clutch gearbox to thank. More on that later, though.
How does it drive?
It’s like a pissed-off German Shepherd, straining to escape from the electronic leash that’s keeping it at heel. Try and use any of the power in anything other than perfect conditions and the front wheels will snatch at the tarmac before the traction control bats it over the head with a newspaper. When leaving my first greasy junction in the car, the Leon’s front wheels thrashed around in the arches through first, second and third gear. Mental.
It certainly seems to have a harsher edge than the equivalent Golf. It might be that my impressions were tainted by the comparatively sterile Tavascan EV, which is the car I drove before slotting myself into the Leon. But its damping, steering and brakes all felt slightly heavier than my memory of the Golf GTI’s – and it’s gearbox shifted with greater ferocity.
That’s not a bad thing in my book. I’m all for owning a hot hatch you actually need to grab by the scruff of the neck drive. It’s why I love the Civic Type R so much.
Getting back to the angry dog analogy; you can train it, too. It just needs a firm hand. Work through the snatchy power delivery, fight back against the torque steer and, for heaven’s sake, don’t chuck it about in the wet like a Golf R – and you’ll find you can pedal the Leon very quickly indeed. On the right road, I reckon the Civic would have its work cut out.
Cupra hasn’t simply crammed an atom bomb into a standard Leon hatch and put it on sale, though. Like the Civic, this has some clever chassis technology to help it manage its power. The most impressive part for me is the electronic differential, which will tug the car into the apex of the corner as you apply the power (in the dry). It’s magical. And hilarious.
Volkswagen’s adaptive dampers deserve a special mention, too, because they do a fabulous job of keeping the Cupra’s weight in check. It isn’t a particularly hefty car at just over 1500kg (especially now that you consider there are two-tonne-plus electric hot hatches like the Ioniq 5 N to contend with), but it’s very composed on a twisty B-road. The suspension isn’t even desperately uncomfortable, even in its harshest Cupra mode.
Again, though, these are all things you can get from the GTI Clubsport for only slightly more money – and the Leon starts to make less and less sense the further down its pecking order you descend. Again, I really can’t see the point of owning one of the 1.5-litre models when the Skoda Octavia exists. If that’s the price point or power output you’d prefer, the Czech car is the better car in every measurable respect.
What about the interior?
I like the Leon’s seats. They’re supportive and comfortable, although I would have liked them better if the adjusters would let them get closer to the floor. I like the Leon’s steering wheel, too – especially the big drive mode selector and start/stop buttons nestled on the two upper spokes. They’re fun to use.
I’m a lot less fond of the Leon’s touchscreen, which is irritating because I love the same unit in the Golf. Cupra has ruined the user interface. For starters, that orange-on-black colour scheme is hideous, being uncomfortable to read in both bright sunlight and pitch blackness.
The menu design is also completely illogical and, for some idiotic reason, Cupra’s engineers have binned off Volkswagen’s excellent toolbar at the top of the screen that allowed you to jump to key functions like the driver assistance tech. It just looks and works like a far cheaper system than it is.
At least the rest of the car is quite practical. You get as much space as the standard SEAT Leon, which is to say enough room in the back for a six-foot adult. There are also plenty of storage bins (including a wireless smartphone charger and door pockets with litre-sized bottle holders) and a 380-litre boot. For any stat trackers playing along at home, that’s the same as the Golf.
Verdict
The Cupra Leon is a car that’s very trim dependent. It’s a waste to opt for an entry-level V1 model with a characterless 1.5-litre petrol engine. I wouldn’t choose a PHEV, either. The extra weight doesn’t suit the car’s nature. To get the best experience, you really need to step up to the performance-focused VZ1 models and above, with the 296bhp 2.0-litre petrol engine.
If you’re a child of the past, you’ll appreciate its harsher edge over the Volkswagen Golf GTI. It has slightly stiffer damping, slightly heavier steering, slightly weightier brakes and a faster automatic gearbox. If I haven’t stressed this enough already, these changes are only marginal but, if you’re looking for a rowdy hot hatch that responds well to a firm hand, you’ll probably be served well by the Leon.
But the Leon has a problem. It has some exceptional rivals, all of which are priced too closely to make it worth opting for. For example, the Audi S3 (which is much more useable all-year round thanks to its four-wheel drive system) is only an extra £3,600 over the most basic Leon VZ1, while the Honda Civic Type R (which is easily the best hot hatch on sale now) costs just £5,000 more than the middling Leon VZ2.
By the time you’ve spread out the extra cash over a finance agreement (and, trust me, I’ve checked), the difference between the Honda and the Cupra is negligible – and the Honda’s well worth the extra money.
The Leon is unquestionably a good hot hatchback, but it doesn’t quite stack up against the very best in its class. And when the best cars are almost the same price, why would you bother with it at all?
Specs are for the Cupra Leon VZ2.