Innovations from Seat

Seat engineering boss Matthias Rabe on what makes a Cupra, as he launches the standalone performance brand

I’VE BEEN at Seat for seven years, I love my job here. When I started, people were saying ‘We don’t need Cupra, we can close Seat Sport’ but for me it’s always been the icing on the cake. Over 20 years we’ve sold 60,000 Cupras. In the last year we’ve sold 10,000, which shows the progress. That’s a fantastic base to bring the product and the brand to the next level.

CUPRA IS neither Ford RS nor DS. Our cars have to drive like a Cupra. That means agility, and if front-wheel drive they need to have neutrality, if you go off throttle it has to turn in. But a Cupra has to have balance, a normal Cupra customer is not having five cars in the garage. [So we give] balance with Dynamic Chassis Control, you can take the kids to school, go to the office or shopping, or take your car on track and really have fun.

IN FUTURE you’ll have more sophistication, more special treatment of the car, more emphasis on design elements. Carbon will be sometimes optional, and we’ll create a [customer-focused] Cupra world. This brand will be about perfect driving and performance. IT STARTS with the Cupra Ateca. You probably saw I had a mule very early of that car, it was driving great and it helped me convince the team to make that car. I love its uniqueness, there’s no competition in that price range. [Performance] SUVs are available but from premium brands at nearly double the price.

WE WILL have alternative powertrains in the Cupra division, even if we’re all fans of the internal combustion engine. Though internal combustion will remain the backbone of the industry, I’m totally sure of that, we will see more electrification. In the Cupra business, we will come with a plug-in hybrid, we have concrete ideas for a battery electric vehicle too. The digital world inside the car [will advance] too, with connectivity.

I HAVE some ideas for much more power. Electrification, but in a sporty way, not in a driving-fun-limiting way. Plug-in hybrid can’t be like today, it has to be much more sporty.

WE WILL also go in the direction of [the hardcore] Cupra R. That’s the benchmark for driveability, for turn-in – I would like to have something like the that. The R has more [negative] camber: today I will show you a Cupra R ST, same ingredients [but a wagon]. Cupra R is limited edition, handcrafted from motorsport division. Same with Cupra R ST. But you won’t find that with the Cupra Ateca. We did so much on the characteristic of the steering with Jordi Gene, in order to find the balance. On that car I’d never turn in the camber!

IF I have a Cupra R, that’s a halo model where we can do a little bit more. In future we will find something like that, a nice Cupra version and maybe a nice Cupra R on which we can compromise a little bit less. I’m a big fan of the Porsche brand; it’s a bit like the normal 911 and the GT3.