HOW TO BUY A SEAT LEON CUPRA
IT’S HOTTER IN SPAIN
If you’re tempted by a Golf GTI, its Spanish relation, the Leon Cupra, is cheaper, rarer, more eye-catching and, best of all, hotter. John Evans shows how to bag a good Mk2
Collector’s alternative
For the same money as our ‘One we found’, you could have a 2005-reg Seat Leon Cupra R 1.8 20v Mk1 with 75,000 miles.
I nevitably, anything from Seat will find itself compared with its Volkswagen contemporary and so it is with this, the Seat Leon Cupra Mk2, whose closest VW relative is the brilliant Golf GTI Mk5. Both share the same platform and when new were on sale at the same time, although the Leon endured a little longer. They’re each powered by a 2.0-litre engine, albeit a 237bhp TFSI in the Leon and a 197bhp FSI in the Golf.
No prizes for guessing which is the faster, the Leon dispatching 0-62mph in 6.4sec and the Golf 7.4sec. In fact, the Cupra’s strong performance has it reaching for the coat-tails of the Mk5 Golf R32, whose 3.2-litre V6 produces 247bhp.