Seat’s new stand-alone performance brand, Cupra, has announced pricing and spec details for its hot Seat Ateca SUV. The all-wheel-drive performance model starts from £35,900, with deliveries due early next year.
The headline price gets you a 296bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine mated exclusively to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Standard kit includes keyless entry and start, an 8.0in touchscreen navigation system, park assist and a wireless phone charger, while metallic paint with a choice of six shades is thrown in, too.
The price is inclusive of the Cupra Care service and maintenance package, including three years of servicing, European roadside assistance and the car's first MOT.
The Cupra Ateca is part of a broader offensive to offer Cupra versions of some Seat models as well as, eventually, Cupra-only cars. Seat is trying to copy the example of in-house performance divisions like Renault Sport. It will launch seven models by 2020 as part of aggressive growth plans.
Cupra could get electrified powertrain tech before Seat
While the initial models will be reworked versions of current Seat machines, with Cupra Ibiza and Arona models likely in 2019, the firm hinted that it could introduce stand-alone Cupra models in the future as part of plans to use the brand as a technological figurehead.
Q&A: Seat boss Luca de Meo on Cupra's future
The brand's sales and marketing boss Wayne Griffiths said that splitting from Seat was important for brand value. "In terms of positioning it adds more to go with a separate brand," he said. "If we kept it in the Seat world, there would always be compromises. We want to take it out of the Seat world to the race track. Most firms that have sporting brands take them out of heritage, like Abarth. But we want to look to the future.
Opinion: Why Cupra split from Seat
Cupra models will be based on Seats – for the foreseeable future, at least – but with significantly higher performance, more customisation options and a separate sales channel. Only about one-fifth of Seat’s dealer network will be awarded Cupra sub-franchises and models are set to be sold by specialists from Cupra-only areas.
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Talking about a heap of shit?
Talking about a heap of shit?
3mocion wrote:
Beaten to it. Twice.
3mocion wrote:
The 6R4 was a proper rally car, don't see how you compare the two, as for biggest heap of shit ever, it was a very competetive rally car in a class that was cancelled due to being too dangerous/extreme.
Surely if you want a premium sports branded car from vag you'd get an audi? This should be just SEAT as they were meant to be the sporty arm of the non premium vag manufacturers. Perhaps then it'd look a little less tacky? And sporty suvs? The sports in suv is meant to imply sporty lifestyle not a sports car.
So expensive for a non
In no way sporty
The logo looks like a question mark and an "S", raising the thought "why SEAT", to which the reply is if they think that fat-arsed Ateca lump of shit is representative of performance, no reason at all. If they think they can pass that heap off as sporty, they'd probably reckon that Andy Fordham looks like a typical Olympic sprinter. Clearly they designed the horror in the expection that there is a market for tacky, and are hoping that they won't go broke by underestimating the taste of the public.