The Volkswagen Group does not only sell sporty cars at VW with the “R” models, but also at the Spanish subsidiary Seat. Anyone who also likes sleek design is in the right place with this price-conscious lifestyle brand in the group.
The new Seat Leon Cupra in the first driving report
“Active vacation”
The sporty opponents within the group are called “Cupra” at Seat and stand for the more powerful top models. Last year the new one Leon Cupra 280 the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring in 7:58 minutes circled, as the first compact front-wheel drive ever, Seat not only made an exclamation mark in the group.
This year sets Seat and presents the Leon Cupra ST, the combined version of the ring athlete for hurried mothers and fathers, who also erased a time of 7:58 in the traditional asphalt.
Vacation or sport?
The Cupra models are built as a "two cars in one" principle. A normal compact in everyday life and if you feel like a few fast driving sequences, where it is allowed, it should have the attributes of an athlete at the push of a button. Today, we “find out” whether the balancing act between a relaxed city trip and the lounge and the racing car fits.
And where can you do that better than in a country where there are both, lounge and racetrack, and then you also speak Spanish. Exactly, in Mallorca, between the boulevards of Palma and the Circuit Mallorca. Where many vacation.
For our trip today, however, we don't use the brand new station wagon, called “ST” by Seat, but the 3-door version with all options. Why is that? Because there is none other than Jordi Gene waiting for us on the race track, who uses such a car in the TCR Series professionally. However, his Cup Racer with the 2.0 TSI machine with dual injection and variable valve lift has 50 HP more than our test car under the hood. The model name Cupra 280 also reveals it from the outside: The engine delivers a full 280 hp, exclusively to the front axle.
Professional grumbler vs. 280 hp
The professional grumblers who now come back and say, "With this performance and only as a front-wheel drive, it will definitely pull the steering wheel uncomfortably again all the time", the Seat engineers have put this usual shortcoming aside. The steering wheel is absolutely steady in the hand and only with brutal use of the accelerator pedal is there a slight pull. Even on the racetrack when fully deployed, it remains extremely neutral in the hand.
Before we start with the "normal" Cupra models - there is also a motor version with 265 hp and versions with a manual gearbox - let's get into the absolute Leon Cupra top model.
Ok, the big engine with 280 PS has already been clarified, plus the "Cupra Top Performance Package" Orange "Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2" ", which also includes exclusive 4.620-inch rims (optionally in black or orange) for 19 euros side sill trims and semi slicks. With a little less hardcore, the smaller “performance package” starts at 2.530 euros. With the included new color package Black Line, White Line or better, as in our case, Orange Line, the Cupra 280 documents its exclusive lifestyle touch to the outside, which should also be “en vogue” on Munich's Maximilianstrasse.
With the semi-slicks on the racetrack
Less gimmick, more tough race seriousness is the four-piston high-performance braking system from Brembo with the perforated brake discs in the format 370 × 32 millimeters, which is standard in the performance package. We experience how well they pack up on our race on the racetrack. So far everything is ok, but when Jordi Gene is sitting in the lead vehicle and you think, "Come on, I can go with the pace", you are sometimes wrong when suddenly the 180 degree curve appears in front of you faster than you thought . Fully in the brakes, so that the four pistons of the Brembo system surround the brake disc as tightly as otherwise only the hand of a wrestler the opponent. The electronics of the Leon Cupra now have to prove everything, send impulses over numerous conductor tracks across the car and somehow nothing happens.
The Cupra 280 pushes only very slightly over the front wheels. Ok, we also installed the optional semi-slicks and drove through a track sprinkler beforehand, otherwise the electronics have everything under control and the Leon Cupra pulls through the curve like a string. Or was it a skill? No, let's be honest, the Cupra 280 is so well balanced that it can be mastered at all times and if the talent runs out, the electronics help perfectly. It's a good thing that the engineers packed so many assistance and safety systems directly on board. Even in "Cupra mode", there are also "Sport" and "Comfort", as well as "Individual", the car won't let you down if you overstretch the bow.
280 for 32.000
The entry into the Cupra world starts at 31.320 euros. In addition to 265 hp, full-LED headlights, the adaptive chassis control DCC, there is also the front axle differential lock as standard. The Cupra 280 we drove starts at 32.620 euros.
Seat did the extremely difficult balancing act of racing car everyday use very well. After the hunt over the Circuit Mallorca we take it easy in "comfort mode". Without nervous twitching of the engine and without annoying power sound, which is wonderfully sonorous at the start when the sports button is pressed, we roll back on lonely Mallorcan country roads back to a lounge in Palma. But not on a "Cupra" -Libre, then rather a water.
Perhaps when the sun slowly sinks over the sea and envelops the island in an emotional light, we will do some “cupra sport” in the mountainous hinterland.
Text: Bernd Schweickard | © Photo: Seat (), Bernd Schweickard