Cupra Leon

A RECENT FAMILY holiday gave my Cupra Leon its rst big test: could it take all of us and our luggage? After all, there’s not much point in having the smartest hot hatch on the block, wearing the ashiest badging to boot, if you have to leave one of your children at home when you go away.

Luckily, the Leon has plenty of room for four inside and just enough space for everything they require for a week away. I should add the caveat here that teenage daughters don’t pack light, so it was perhaps no surprise that the interior was littered with the extra bags we couldn’t t in the boot.

The rst leg of the journey was a 135-mile hop down the A303 to Somerset. Considering the amount of traf c that always accumulates around Stonehenge, I was pleased with the 35.5mpg readout on the digital dashboard at the end of that trip. Meanwhile, a 151-mile schlep down to Cornwall that initially included some faster motorway work upped that gure even further to an impressive 36.9mpg – not far off the of cial 37.2mpg average.

However, there is more to my Cupra than mere fuel-sipping.we took in Devon, too, and on those tight and twisty (and frequently wet) roads it was delightful: plenty of power when needed, strong brakes, quick steering and an abundance of grip. Perhaps most impressive of all was the ride, which was never uncomfortable, even on the bumpiest of country lanes. Considering how heavily we were loaded up, it was an excellent all-round performance.

The doorman outside the hotel thought the car was pretty impressive, too. He correctly identi ed it as a Cupra and then told me he’d seen them on the internet – on whatcar.com, presumably. His enthusiasm for my car was matched only by mine for his hotel, and that enthusiasm of his prospered in a hotel car park in which he was surrounded by larger and far more expensive motors.that’s a pretty good result for a edgling brand like Cupra, I’d say.