The Cupra Ateca Is Here With 296bhp And A Shiny New Badge
See the car in the image above? It may look like a Seat, but it kinda/sorta isn’t. It’s the very first car from Cupra in its new guise as a standalone brand, free from the shackles of Seat. That being said, the new Cupra Ateca - which was leaked just hours before this official reveal - certainly follows a familiar recipe.
It’s been given the same 2.0-litre ‘EA888’ turbocharged inline-four as the existing Leon Cupra, putting out 296bhp to all four wheels. 0-62mph happens in 5.2 seconds, while the top speed is - shock horror - not 155mph. Instead, the livened-up Ateca runs out of puff at 152mph. It won’t be quite as slippery as the Leon, remember.
The old six-speed DSG automatic gearbox has been shirked in favour of VW Group’s newer seven-speed unit, which debuted in the VW Golf GTI. Also new is the ‘Otto Particulate Filter System’, which will prevent the car falling foul of the new, tougher WLTP emissions cycle.
Both outside and in, all Seat badging has been banished and replaced with the new Cupra logo. The exterior has been spruced up with sportified front and rear bumpers, quad tailpipes and rather a lot of gloss black trim.
The idea of the Cupra separation? It’s all about tempting customers who might not have otherwise considered a Seat while also giving the main brand an uplift, CEO Luca de Meo explained at the car’s reveal in Terramar, Spain.
At the same event, the fledgling brand has also debuted the Cupra Ibiza and Cupra Arona “design excercises,” although neither are confirmed for production yet. What will be going ahead is a Leon Cupra R ST, complete with carbonfibre aero parts, copper alloy wheels, a tweaked exhaust system and beefed-up brakes.
The Cupra R ST will make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show before going on sale at the tail end of the year, a window of time during which the Cupra Ateca is also expected to launch.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Sounds like they took advice from Toro Rosso in the leak department: Reveal it after it’s been leaked.
Shame that it’s first model is an SUV…
Hey, I understand that it’s painful to see Cupra’s first car is an SUV, but The world’s love affair for SUVs had just begun. Cupra will then use that money to eventually build sport coupes, sedans,etc., cars with such character that petrol heads would love. Wait until few years down the road, where those same people that bought a performance SUV, eventually realizes that they could’ve gotten a 4 door performance saloon.
I think it is more of an achievement to make a fun to drive hot-SUV compared to a fun to drive hot hatch where the hatch already have an edge on dynamics over the SUV
Imo, the first car under the new brand should have been something like the recent Leon Cupra R not an SUV but ok :(
😍😍😍😍😍
Sorry Ford Performance, I might have to cheat on you with Cupra
I dig it
One of the many SUVs i dont care about.
Nice
This is cool. This is really cool. Now we need a Tiguan GTi
There’s the Tiguan R-line, but it isn’t sporty. The closest thing we have is the Audi RSQ3 (not sure if they still do it) with an inline-5.
What’s up lately with the sport division of a maker going for separate bussiness as a whole? first Polestar, now Cupra… with separate badges and all… Honestly, part of point of having a Cupra or Polestar is seeing it along side their respective badges (Seat, Volvo) not overriding them. Kinda weird, but I guess we shouldn’t complain ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Am I the only one who thinks the Cupra badge looks like a toy manufacturer badge? Or like a transformers badge?
‘Let’s launch our performance car brand… with the most inherently slow, ungainly, and useless (as the recent Grand Tour SUVs episode proved) form of car imaginable!’👍✅