What is Cupra? Everything you need to know about the Spanish challenger brand

What is Cupra?

Cupra is the sizzling, sporty Spanish cousin you never knew Volkswagen had, and a brand making its mark with a sexy line-up of performance-focused cars. 

Who owns Cupra?

The Volkswagen Group. It’s the largest motoring conglomerate in the world and includes such disparate members as VW and Bentley, Skoda and Lamborghini and, of course, Audi, all of which have been on the market in Australia for some time. Cupra, however, is the newest member of the family to hit our shores.

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Who makes Cupra cars?

Cupra is itself an off-shoot of Spanish automobile manufacturer SEAT (which the Volkswagen Group also owns), and was previously known as the alliteration-friendly SEAT Sport, when ‘Cupra’ was simply a performance trim offered on SEAT cars. 

The Cupra range heading Down Under from next year includes two mid-size SUVs (Cupra Ateca and Cupra Formentor), a hot hatch (the very sexy Cupra Leon) and the brand’s first all-electric vehicle, the Cupra Born (the EV hatch will arrive in Australia either late-2022 or early-2023, the rest of the range will be available in Australia from mid-2022). 

The Formentor (which does sound a bit like a cheese-making machine, or a gin still) and the Leon are built in the SEAT Martorell factory in Catalonia, Spain, the Ateca is built in the SEAT Kvasiny factory in the Czech Republic, and the Born is built in the Volkswagen Zwickau-Mosel Plant in Germany. So, the brand isn’t exactly a purely Spanish product any more.

Cupra price

Pricing for the range in Australia is yet to be confirmed, but is expected to start just above $40,000 for the Leon, and will go up to around $64,000 for the Formentor plug-in hybrid. 

Where can I buy a Cupra car? 

Like Tesla, Cupra cars will be available to purchase online through an agency model, and will likely be sold at a fixed price. There will, however, be a limited number of physical showrooms and display centres for those who like to have a first date with their car before taking it home. 

Are there any other Cupra models available? 

In overseas markets, Cupra offers a wagon variant of the Leon called the Sportstourer, and there are other Cupra EVs available, including the Cupra Tavascan and the Cupra Urban Rebel. 

The Cupra cars coming to Australia

All models come with a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, with servicing supplied through select Volkswagen dealerships.

Cupra Born

Based upon the Volkswagen ID.3, which is hugely popular in Europe but tragically not yet available in Australia, the Born is the very first Cupra EV, the five-seater hatch looking set to battle the Nissan Leaf e+ and Hyundai Ioniq Electric when it finally arrives here. 

The Born will look and drive sportier than the ID.3, though, with the battery packs coming in either 58kWh (just over 400km of range) or 77kWh (just over 500km of range) versions. The former has an optional e-boost package available that lifts the output of the rear-mounted motor to 170kW - a 20kW improvement on the ID.3 that has the Born hitting 100km/h from a standstill in 6.6 seconds (for comparison, the VW Golf GTI hot hatch does the same in 6.3 seconds).

Keeping with the eco-friendly theme, the standard seats in the Born are covered in Seaqual (a material made from recycled plastic retrieved from the sea, rather than being the working title for the movie Aquaman 2). 

Cupra Formentor

This mid-size crossover SUV will come in three iterations of the same 2.0-litre petrol turbo engine (offering 140kW, 180kW and 228kW of output), plus a 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol plug-in hybrid, with 180kW.

All-wheel drive is available for the 140kW and 228kW petrol variants, with the latter’s 400Nm of torque getting the Formentor to 100km/h from a standstill in 4.9 seconds - not a bad number for a less-aerodynamic SUV body. 

The Formentor is the brand’s biggest seller overseas, where it accounts for two-thirds of all Cupra sales, and there’s also a limited-run 'VZ5' version available in Europe, powered by a 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine with outputs of 287kW/480Nm (the VZ5 won’t be available in Australia due to it being left-hand drive only).

Cupra Leon

The Leon hatchback is pretty much a a VW Golf twin, and it comes with a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine in three variants (140kW/320Nm, 180kW/370Nm and 221kW/400Nm). 

There’s a plug-in hybrid version - the first PHEV that Volkswagen Group Australia has released - which has a 110kW/250Nm 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine and a 12.8kWh lithium-ion battery pack that offers around 55km of all-electric driving range.

All variants of the Leon feature front-wheel drive and dual-clutch automatic transmissions, and all are seven-speed, save for the PHEV, which is six-speed. 

Cupra Ateca

This mid-size, all-wheel-drive Cupra SUV comes with a 221kW/400Nm turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that’s paired with a dual-clutch automatic transmission. 

The Ateca is a twin of the Skoda Karoq, and can hit 100km/h from a standstill in 4.9 seconds.