Cupra

SEAT’s now standalone CUPRA performance brand is making its debut appearance at the Geneva Motor Show, and it’s making history in the process. The world’s first fully electric racing touring car in the world is wearing a CUPRA badge, and it’s called the CUPRA e-Racer. Largely based on the SEAT Leon TCR touring car, the CUPRA e-Racer not only looks like a serious race car, it also has as much as 670 horsepower at its disposal.

Like many business relationships, that between carmakers and customers should be one of trust and respect. Automakers should make sure that they deliver a solid product as they cash the check, while customers should use the cars accordingly. Unfortunately, recent events prove that car companies can’t be trusted. Volkswagen was caught cheating on their emission tests for diesel cars, while many other brands have admitted to lying about MPG figures for some vehicles. Mercedes and BMW have been accused of testing dirty diesel engines on monkies, and some reports claim that they used human volunteers as well. Now, it turns out that Ferrari can’t be trusted either. Ferrari! An automaker that asks between hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars for its cars and has strict rules for potential customers.

I’m not saying that Ferrari should stick to the rules more than any other automaker out there, but it’s massively ironic that Maranello cheated its clients. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, it has been revealed that Ferrari allowed its dealers to roll back odometers on used cars in the U.S., a move that inflates prices for used models artificially.

Cupra has just announced a Seat-Leon-based e-Racer with rear-wheel drive, 402 continual horsepower, peak 670 horsepower, and a 65 kWh battery pack. Further details have yet to be released, but It will be unveiled to the world in all its glory at the Geneva Motor Show in just a few days’ time.

The newly minted standalone brand Cupra is shaping up to be much more than just a go-to for performance thrills. According to a recent report from Autocar, SEAT brass have divulged that Cupra could also act as the development workhorse for a number of new technologies, including electric drivetrain tech.

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Following an unofficial reveal earlier this week that spilled shots of the upcoming Cupra Ibiza all over social media, the newly minted standalone performance brand decided to serve up some fresh press shots of the tiny mighty machines. While Cupra maintains thenew Ibiza is not yet part of the standard brand lineup (believe it or not, Cupra is saying that it’s still in the “design exercise” phase), it looks pretty darned done to us. With that in mind, we decided to give a little visual inspection and comparison against one of its chief rivals – the Ford Fiesta ST.

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The Ibiza nameplate has been around since 1984, when Spanish automaker SEAT introduced it as a replacement for the outgoing Fura. Framed as an affordable and fun B-segment supermini, the Ibiza has seen five generations over the years, the most recent of which dropped in 2017 at the Geneva International Motor Show. A variety of body styles have been used as well, including a five-door hatchback, a sedan, a coupe, and a wagon, but the most interesting of the lot is the hot-to-trot Cupra model. These high-performance iterations (“Cupra” is an amalgamation of “cup” and “racing”) are aimed squarely at the enthusiast market, bringing more power, aggressive styling, stiff suspension, big brakes, and an interior-spec upgrade to match. These days, Cupra fancies itself a standalone brand, much in the same way Polestar detached itself from Volvo. And while the first effort for the sub-brand-turned-automaker is the 300-horsepower Ateca SUV, you can bet a freshly Cupra-tized Ibiza is on the way too. That much was revealed in a slew of images posted to social media prior to an expected debut at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show. In response to the leak, Cupra dropped a selection of official pics, given us a clearer view of the pumped-up five-door.

While Cupra is saying the Ibiza isn’t considered an official part of the range just yet (this latest model is designated as no more than a design exercise), we think it’s highly likely the hot hatch is production-ready. The brand will show the new Ateca in Geneva, which is all well and good, but in all honesty, the Ibiza is the the one we really want. Read on to find out why.

Continue reading to learn more about the 2018 Cupra Ibiza.

Fresh from the bowels of the SEAT – Cupra split comes the Cupra Ateca, a rebadged model with the typical tuner enhancements. Highlights include a considerable horsepower increase, mild revisions to the exterior, plenty of Alcantara inside, and a swath of standard features suited for what would have been the range-topping model of the SEAT Ateca range. Of Course, there’s a lot of ground for the Cupra Ateca to cover when you consider the sheer size of the compact SUV Market. Sure, there aren’t a lot of performance compacts out there, but the Cupra Ateca will be fighting for dominance against vehicles like the Porsche Macan, BMW X3, and Jaguar F-Pace, all heavy hitters that could make things for the new kid on the block a little more difficult. So, let’s see what the new Ateca brings to the table and just how well it stacks up against the competition.

Cupra’s first model, the Cupra Ateca, comes to the market with 296 horsepower, a new seven-speed DSG transmission, all-wheel-drive system, and it even has an Otto Particulate Filter System to combat those pesky emissions. This is the first model from the Cupra brand now that it has split away from SEAT, and it will be followed by models like the Cupra Arona, Cupra TCR race car, and the Cupra Ibiza.

Like a teenager that had to navigate through rocky adolescent years, the Seat Ibiza Cupra has evolved from an ugly duckling to a fierce swan, if such a thing existed. The hot hatch’s impressive evolution shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, because Cupra is now going at it alone after breaking off from the Seat mothership to become a standalone performance brand. As far as first impressions go, Cupra is on the right track because leaked photos of the Cupra Ibiza reveal a hot hatch that looks ready to steal some thunder from its rivals.