The 2017 Seat Arona small SUV has been spied winter testing ahead of its expected public debut at the Frankfurt motor show in September and a market launch at the end of the year.
Little can be seen underneath the Arona’s heavy disguise, but some detail of the head and tail-lights can be made out, including an Seat Ateca-like geometric LED design at the rear.
New Seat Arona revealed as Nissan Juke rival
The Arona has a smoother design than the more angular Ateca, although this test car's camouflage may be disguising some of the sharper creases.
The Arona is scheduled for release a few months after the new Seat Ibiza, and is likely to share styling cues with the supermini; the Ateca’s design is derived from the Seat Leon.
Like the Ateca, the Arona will get an off-road friendly X-Perience trim level, and will very likely receive four-wheel drive in this variant, as well as on upper trim levels.
As the Ateca shares engines with the mid-sized Leon, the Arona is expected to share engines and underpinnings with the smaller Ibiza hatchback.
According to a Seat spokesman, the Ibiza, Leon and Ateca make up the other three “pillars of Seat”, meaning that the Arona will complete Seat’s core product line-up.
It’s not yet known if the Arona will get a hot Cupra variant like the rest of the Seat range, but the spec levels are almost certain to follow the rest of the range, with Xcellence trim at the top, and SE as the entry-level choice. A Seat spokesman could not yet comment on this, however.
We expect the Arona to cost from around £16,000 when released, which would represent a premium of about £3000 over the Ibiza, pricing it competitively with the Nissan Juke and other small SUV rivals.
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