SEAT Leon 2000 test drive - 2006 hatchback

Cup & Racing

He stood at the very edge of the water. Beautiful and collected. In the gaze - the calm confidence of the strong. In a pumped body - a willingness to fight with any challenge. Kupra, Leon Cupra - as if he said, introducing himself ...
 
So we stood against each other - maybe five minutes, or maybe an hour. I was hot - he doesn’t care. I wanted to test him in business - I was indifferent to him. Well, enough, ”I told myself,“ in the end, this is just a yellow car. ” Just think, two hundred horsepower. Well, 270 nm torque, well, all-wheel drive, a six-speed gearbox ... We saw something and hotter. But something stopped me, prevented me from opening the door and starting the motor ...
 
I just could not admire them. Leon Cupra bewitched me with his sunny yellowness. Such a frank color has not been on Moscow streets for a long time. And it is unlikely that he will soon appear in abundance. The Muscovite's eye is not used to some kind of special color car diversity. For Mercedes, the most familiar is black, for Mitsubishi Pajero - probably silver, for low -profiles Peugeot, Renault and Volkswagen - blue or green ... but Leon Cupra should be yellow. Yellow-heard. Of course, the Seat is not Ferrari, and no matter how color it is painted, it will never rush like a red stallion from Maranello. But I assure you, a little lion cub has a breed.
 
Recall, Cupra is from Cup and Racing. However, there are not so many sports features in the appearance of the car. Modest anti -wing over the rear glass, the v6 nameplate on the front wing and a good seventeen -inch sports shoes. However, these small bells and whistles, coupled with color, turned out to be quite enough to make Leon completely unlike its low -commercial brothers. Bright, summer, arrogant in a good way, he hypnotizes, not allowing to look away from himself ...
 
Further more. Four (!) Seats Recaro are installed in the cabin. This is not a 2+2 scheme used on expensive compartment for two adults and two children. This is a sports car with four sports seats for adults (sitting from behind is no less convenient than in front) and another place for the child. Moreover, the second row is located slightly higher, and from there even low passengers are perfectly visible. The notch between the two rear seats will please the small fifth crew member (there is a separate seat belt). Checked personally. My seven -year offspring spent an hour with me in the car, not tired of admiring the advantages of his personal place.
 
In addition to standard settings, a driver's seat has an elevator for changes in height, as well as an adjustable lumbar roller. The seat can be adjusted to a person of almost any dimensions. Three pedals are decorated with racing metal overlays. For the left leg there is a wide metal emphasis.
 
Two steering wheel switches - standard Volkswagen, with a conventional set of functions. The instrument shield is stingy, but informative - a speedometer, tachometer, coolant temperature and fuel level sensor. The remaining control lamps are hidden in the window of an opaque display. It comes to life only at the time of turning on the ignition, and after self -testing the system, all the bulbs go out in turn. The steering wheel with well -chosen diameter and thickness is covered with the skin pleasant to the touch - successful, like leather inserts in the doorway, adding to an expensive black interior. On the heater console, a climate control control panel and a radio with a CD changer were located.
 
The fact that the car inside looks an order of magnitude more expensive than outside, occupied me with the whole test. In the driver's seat, I felt like the owner of a prestigious representative car. Chic and comfort Made in Spain - unexpectedly, but very nice. Plus, unusual silence in the cabin. Neither the motor nor the noise of the rubber is almost heard. You can understand that you are moving not in the airless space, but on your native planet, only after overcoming the line of 180 km/h. Amazing!
 
I would like to supplement the salon delights with a mention of several pleasant trifles: the devices backlight are turned on automatically when the car gets into the shadow, the sound level of stereomagnes increases with speed growth, on the threshold near the driver's seat there is a small button for the disconnection of the voluminous sensor of anti -theft signaling. If you had to leave your child or a dog in a closed car for a short time, just press this button, and you will avoid false Alarma's triggers ...
 
A six-cylinder V-shaped motor with a volume of 2.8 liters produces 204 hp. at 6200 vol. and spins up to 6500 rpm. Rather, the limiter works somewhere at 6700 rpm., But it is absolutely not necessary to strain the motor so much. After the first 10 minutes of movement, I realized that I did not want to climb above 4000 rpm. The engine is endowed with a very smooth characteristic and easily accelerates the machine almost evenly and the same in the range from 1000 to 6000 rpm. He is absolutely predictable, and there is no need to expect unexpected sports jerks and pickups from him. This power unit could probably move not only one and a half -ton Leon, but also a truck of impressive sizes.
 
(Actually, Cupra 4 is not the fastest Leon. In the spring of this year, the CuPra R version appeared on the market. Six horses are more powerful, two kilometers per hour faster, for one tenth seconds accelerates to a hundred - all due that its 1.8 liter motor is equipped with a turbocharger. And, therefore, a priori cannot have such a flat characteristic as the atmospheric engine Cupra 4.)
 
The Cupra 4 motor is aggregated with a manual six -speed gearbox. The gearboxes of the checkpoint are optimal for both urban and suburban conditions. In my opinion, the first gear is somewhat short - apparently, it is inherited from a car with a small engine. But you quickly stop paying attention to this. At the same time, the sixth is not an empty pseudo -sports accessory and is intended for movement at speeds of more than 180 km/h - it is to this high -speed line that the fifth gear leads to give way to the highest. The course of the lever of the box in the folkvagenovsky is long, but in general it is quite acceptable.
 
The car suspension is optimal for both an acute driving and for calm movement in the Sunday flow of summer residents. It does not provoke a driver's aggressiveness, as it was, for example, in the case of Honda Civic Type R (motor #7, 2002), but will allow lovers of acute ride to play racing - will provide honed handling of a sports car. At the same time, even older people in Leon Cupra will be comfortable and pleasant. Neutral rotation, sufficient rigidity and not a single breakdown for the entire test. Bravo!
 
I can’t say anything about the advantages or disadvantages of all -wheel drive (permanent, with a Haldex coupling) and the ESP course stability system (I didn’t even try to turn it off). Whether the wonderful Michelin Sport tires are to blame for a 225 mm wide, or the quality of the coating of Moscow streets has improved, but I never could put the car in a skid. All day she was stable and safe ...
 
The author is biased, ”you say, - fell in love with Leon Cupra, lost a sense of reality and described the perfect car. I repent, I really found my car. Cupra combines everything I need. She is moderately fast and sported, very comfortable and endowed with an aggressive appearance to me. But I did not quite lose my head, and I am ready to note the shortcomings of the car. There are two of them. The first is the disgusting work of ABS. The system works in the case and without - when slowing down in the bend, when braking on irregularities, which causes a lot of anxiety, interfering with a real pleasure from driving. I know that there are methods of reprogramming the brake assistant. In the sports department of the Volkswagen concern, this is done, for example, in the preparation of Polo for highland and ring racing. And if Cupra were mine, I would probably try to improve her ABS.
 
The second and more significant, in my opinion, minus is the price of 34.600 American dollars, which is explained by a high level of configuration (only CD changers, navigation system and an electric drive - everything else is already available) ...
 
The pros is obvious, the disadvantages are noticeable, but be that as it may, I received a real pleasure from communicating with this powerful comfortable car. Seat Leon Cupra 4 is not a sports car and not a family hatchback, but a successful compromise between them. It differs from a sports monster in the same way as convenient sneakers for every day from specially taught football boots.
 
Goodbye, Leo. Maybe we’ll also meet. Interestingly, how much now you can take a loan for the purchase of a car with a size of $ 34.600?
 
Text: Boris Schulmeister
  

Source: Motor magazine [No. 8/2002]