No one will deny that by world standards, the number of new car brands that are available to a relatively small population here in Australia is disproportionate to most other countries.
Although we are apparently not big enough to produce our own cars anymore, the number of new brands the world manufacturers are prepared to offload here never ceases to amaze me, and there’s more coming!
You may have heard how another is about to hit our roads this month, the Cupra, which is short for Cup Racing.
Well known in Europe, the Cupra is the high-performance arm of the Spanish car manufacturer Seat, which is owned by the Volkswagen Group. Released in Europe in 1996, their first road-going model was the Ibiza GTI 16V Cupra, a street-legal version of the three-time World Rally Cup winning Seat Ibiza Kit Car. Throughout the early 2000’s they released high-performance, track-oriented R spec versions of both the Leon and Ibiza and then in 2018 Cupra became its own stand-alone brand concentrating on high-performance competitively priced vehicles.
Here’s their website cupraofficial.com.au
As Cupra is a part of the Volkswagen Group, which extends from Skoda to Porsche and includes many other notable brands, there is no shortage of technical and design expertise available to them. It’s also interesting to note that they will be releasing the Volkswagen Groups first non-luxury electric car in Australia early next year in the form of a hot hatch.
The three models that will lead the Australian Cupra range are the VW Golf-size Leon hatchback, the Ateca small SUV and the critically acclaimed Formentor Coupe-crossover.
The guys at carsales.com.au have had a chance to look over all the Australian Cupra range and here is what Sam Charlwood has to say about the Formentor and Leon
Cupra Formentor – Sam Charlwood carsales.com.au
Cupra Leon – Sam Charlwood carsales.com.au
And Matt Robinson looks at the Ateca