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By Jonathan Crouch

The improved CUPRA Leon Estate combines practicality with panache, thinks Jonathan Crouch

Ten Second Reviewword count: 50

The CUPRA Leon Estate might be close in concept and execution to a SEAT Leon Estate but it brings to that design a different dimension of style and speed. This Spanish station wagon shopping rocket comes with a choice of conventional petrol turbo or PHEV powertrains. Here's the updated version.

Backgroundword count: 123

Want a fast but compact-sized estate? There aren't that many options but quicker versions of Ford Focus, Volkswagen Golf and Skoda Octavia station wagons are all possibilities. Here's another option to add to that list, CUPRA's Leon Estate, first launched in 2021, then updated in Spring 2024 to create the car we're going to look at here. As you'll probably know, CUPRA is a marque created by SEAT back in 2018 for its sporting models. Recently, it's been creating its own cars (the Formentor SUV and the Born and Tavascan EVs), but this CUPRA Leon Estate isn't much different to a SEAT Leon Estate - expect that you can have it with sportier styling and more powerful engines. Let's take a closer look.

Driving Experienceword count: 292

Various engines are on offer. Most customers will be choosing their CUPRA Sportstourer with one of two available (but very different) 245PS powertrains. There's a conventional 2.0 TSI petrol turbo unit. Or a clever new 1.5-litre petrol/electric PHEV plug-in e-HYBRID engine with a much larger 19.7kWh battery which can now travel up to 70 miles between charges and manages 62mph in around 7s en route to 140mph. The e-HYBRID variant comes with the choice of either 204PS or 272PS powertrains. If you want your Leon Sportstourer with even more zip, you'll need to get the conventional 2.0-litre TSI turbo unit in uprated tune - similar to the sort of thing you'd find in a Golf R Estate. Here, the '4Drive' 4x4 Sportstourer model in question has 333PS and makes 62mph in 4.8s en route to 155mph. That top '4Drive' version now gets clever torque-splitting technology which can shift power independently between the rear wheels during cornering for greater agility; or it can direct all of the power to one of the rear wheels if an added 'Drift' mode is activated. There's also an exclusive 'CUPRA' drive mode meant to be optimised for race track use. Whatever CUPRA Leon Sportstourer model you choose, it should handle well. The engineers have worked hard on this model's electric power steering system and say it's the 'most progressive feeling' rack they've ever delivered. The ride has been lowered by 25mm at the front and by 20mm at the rear over a standard Leon. Plus on most models there's a standard DCC adaptive damping system to vary ride quality based on your choice from a range of drive modes. Stopping power's taken care of by a large set of Brembo 370mm disc brakes gripped by copper-coloured calipers.

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