Cupra is fresh Seat of power
Seat, the Volkswagen Group’s Spanish division, is the fourth new car brand to be launched in New Zealand this year (the others are Tesla, Infiniti and Haval).
It’s small beginnings for Seat here: just two models and only one dealership – still under construction in Newmarket, Auckland. There will also be service points in Wellington and Christchurch.
The hero model of the range is the Leon Cupra, a hot-hatch that puts 221kW through the front wheels. The Cupra (a contraction of ‘‘cup racer’’) powerplant is essentially the same unit fitted to the VW Golf R AWD. So for $56,900 you can think of it as Golf R performance at close to Golf GTi price.
The other Seat available is a more volume-oriented mediumsized SUV: the Ateca Xcellence 4Drive, with a 140kW/400Nm turbo-diesel engine. It’s priced at $52,900.
The rest of the Ateca range will arrive before year’s end, including Style and Xcellence-specification FWD models with a 1.4-litre 110kW/250 turbo-petrol engine ($38,900-$44,900) and the sporty FR, with a 140kW/320Nm turbopetrol powerplant and AWD ($52,400).
In November we’ll see the Ibiza supermini, an all-new model based on the next-generation VW Polo platform. It’ll be powered by a 1.0-litre 85kW engine and sevenspeed DSG transmission, priced at $25,900. In March 2018 a more modestly powered – but still sports-themed – Leon will be launched, in the form of the $35,900 110kW/250Nm FR.