What’s it like?
There have always been high-performance versions of the Spanish SEAT Leon hatchback, ever since it first appeared back in 1999, and they all wore the Cupra badges as a suffix. But following on from the firm’s decision to make Cupra a standalone badge all of its own, from 2020 onwards the hot models of this Volkswagen Golf-sized (and co-developed) car became Cupra Leons, rather than SEAT Leon Cupras. In this fourth-generation car, the body options were between a regular five-door hatch and a stylish Sportstourer estate, and there was a range of potent petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrains available.
Which model to go for?
The Cupra Leon has used 1.5-litre petrol, 2.0-litre diesel, 2.0-litre petrol and both 1.4- and 1.5-litre PHEV powertrains throughout its service life, with all engines deployed being turbocharged and four-cylinder in nature. There are models with four-wheel drive, which Cupra calls 4Drive, but they are reserved for the Sportstourer, and even then, in the more-powerful iterations.
Realistically, on the second-hand market of Ireland, cars like the 2.0 TSI 300 hatchback, the 2.0 TSI 310 4Drive Sportstourer and the later 325hp VZ special edition will not be widely available. Nor will 190hp variants of the 2.0-litre TSI engine.
The main three alternatives here, then, are the 1.5 eTSI 150, the 2.0 TDI 150 and the high-power PHEV called eHybrid; prior to a significant facelift in 2024, which brought in a snub-nosed look for the Cupra Leon, complete with a handlebar-moustache-like lower bumper detail, the eHybrid was a 245hp 1.4-litre-based set-up, while after the facelift it became a 272hp 1.5.
That makes it the most-potent variant of the Cupra Leon you’ll readily find on the used market in this country, unless a rare UK import lands on the scene. The 150hp cars, either petrol or diesel, are reasonably swift, and both will do 0-100km/h in around 8.7 seconds.
Weirdly, on the face of it, the later 272hp eHybrid was actually slower to 100km/h from rest (7.1 seconds) than the earlier 245hp PHEV (6.7 seconds), but an explanation for that loss of pace is simple. As part of the facelift, the eHybrid’s battery pack went from 12.8- to 19.7kWh, significantly increasing its electric-driving range from 63- to 119km, but bringing with it enough of a weight penalty to entirely cancel out the extra grunt of the 272hp powertrain.
There is no bad model of the Cupra Leon – every version drives sweetly and has a good engine/gearbox combination. Unusually for this market, the Sportstourer turns out to be slightly more commonplace on the second-hand scene than the hatch, while DSG automatics vastly outnumber any of the six-speed manuals. Those DSGs are either six-speed units in the PHEVs or seven-speed gearboxes in anything else, but if you want one of the PHEVs then you have to have a DSG transmission – the manual wasn’t available on these cars at all.
Does anything go wrong?
The main issues with the Cupra Leon relate to electrical glitches with the infotainment system, as it is a car gestated during the period when the Volkswagen Group had somewhat lost its way with regards sound interior ergonomics. Other than that, all the hardware used in the Spanish machine is tried and tested stuff, so get one with a solid history and you should be absolutely fine.
There were three recalls for this generation of the Leon, although they are not specific to the Cupra alone (they also affect the regular SEAT models), and these were for improper heat treatment of the engine mounts; a potentially detachable luggage-area bracket increasing the risk of injury to passengers; and a faulty fuse that could possibly lead to a fire hazard.