2026 Cupra Leon review: Australian first drive

Cupra was something of a surprise entrant to the Australian market. One that was already pretty busy even before the bewildering number of new Chinese brands started pouring in.

For those new to the Cupra brand, it’s the performance arm of VW’s Spanish brand SEAT. SEAT had a decent go at the Australian market in the 1990s with the very well-regarded Toledo and also with the Ibiza, which was a bit hit-and-miss depending on the model grade.

Cupra’s sales have been pretty steady since its local launch in 2022, with around 10,000 cars sold since its arrival – an overall year-on-year growth this year of about 20 per cent, give or take. The Leon and Formentor formed the basis of the assault, along with the brand's first EV, the Born. SUVs have since followed, including the Terramar and Tavascan.

For its third year, the Leon range has had a significant tweak, with the introduction of a mild-hybrid entry-level, the return of the hot hatch, and a new plug-in hybrid (PHEV) wagon. Next year, we’ll also get a petrol wagon with 245kW and all-wheel drive, plus a PHEV hatchback.

The Leon range refresh includes a facelift front and rear and some changes inside. Gone is the older media screen, the new one now up to 12.9 inches, with some detail changes to lift the ambience.

You can spot the new car on the road with its re-profiled front end, with a more prominent shark-nose fascia, new air intakes and new headlights. The rear now has a full-width LED light bar with a lit Cupra logo in red.

The reshuffled range starts with the $46,990 Leon S (before on-road costs) to replace the Leon V.

You get 18-inch alloy wheels, auto LED headlights, auto wipers, keyless entry and start, sports bucket seats up front with heating and driver’s memory, heated steering wheel, tri-zone climate control, six-speaker sound, 10.25-inch digital cockpit, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless 50-watt phone charger, configurable ambient interior lighting, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera and a space-saver spare.

Apart from paint, the sole option pack on the S is the $2200 Leather and Sound package, which brings the spec closer to the VZx with full synthetic leather, 12-speaker Sennheiser sound, and power and memory for the passenger seat.

Next in the range is the VZx hot hatch for $64,990 (before on-road costs). In addition to the S, you get 19-inch Hailstorm black and copper alloys, adaptive suspension, multi-link rear suspension, mechanical front diff (that’s new), synthetic leather upholstery, a memory function added to the passenger seat, 12-speaker Sennheiser stereo, bigger brakes, one more drive profile, quad exhaust, side skirts and a tyre repair kit.

Both the hatchbacks have the option of a large sunroof for $1800.

And the new entrant is the $69,990 VZe Sports Tourer with plug-in hybrid power. As with the VZx, you get 19-inch wheels, black roof rails for the longer roof and a power tailgate with kick sensor.

The sunroof is $2000 on the wagon.

Cupra offers four standard colours – Glacial White, Fiord Blue, Magnetic Tech (a kind of gunmetal grey) and Midnight Black.

For $620 you can have Taiga Grey (which is more of an intriguing light cream/green, much better than it sounds), Graphene Grey and Dark Void. For $2650 you can have a choice of three matte colours: Century Bronze, Magnetic Tech Matte and Enceladus Grey. The matte colours are quite striking and suit the shape well, but that Taiga Grey is also fascinating. I’d probably pick Fiord Blue, but I’m a sook.

A five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty applies with servicing every 12 months/15,000km. A five-year service pack is available for $1990.

The safety package includes 10 airbags (with front centre airbag, more on that later), plus exit assist to stop you opening the door into cyclists or other traffic.

Let’s start with the most intriguing model, the plug-in hybrid wagon that Cupra is calling Sports Tourer. Powered by a 1.5-litre turbo four-cylinder and a single electric motor, the front-wheel-drive Sports Tourer has a combined 200kW and 400Nm and a vaguely silly ADR figure of 0.4 litres per 100 kilometres.

That figure comes from the fact you can waft around in EV mode with a claimed range of 121km, which is a fine start for the average Australian car owner who drives around 30km per day, give or take. Obviously that number is a lab number, but even if it lands around 90–100km, that’s not bad.

If you’re super-disciplined like a friend of mine who gets over 3000km per tank in his Outlander PHEV, you’ll rarely kick the petrol engine into life, so that’s how you might see 1.0 or 2.0L/100km. Otherwise, I’d suggest you’ll see a hybrid-like 5L or 6L/100km on longer trips.

You can charge at up to 11kW AC (wallbox required) and, rather more cheerfully, up to 50kW with a DC charger. This means you can use public charging infrastructure to charge the 20kW battery. Cupra says all being well you’ll get from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in 26 minutes on a 50kW charger.

When I stepped in to the fully charged Sports Tourer, the range read 109km. As we were driving out west of the Blue Mountains, we ripped through the battery, so we didn’t have time to understand how it would go around town. That will have to wait for another time.

Acceleration is strong, however, and near silent. Even when the engine kicks in you get a distant, Audi-like whirr from the 1.5L engine. In normal driving it’s exceptionally refined, and the tricky part of braking in a PHEV – the transition between energy recovery and physical stopping – is seamless.

It doesn’t appear to suffer from any extra road noise despite the more open architecture of the wagon, and most of the time you only know you’re driving the longer car when you’re parking.

You do know about it on twisting country roads, however. The extra weight of the battery is noticeable in heavy braking and long fast corners, but only people like me worry about that sort of thing, so for most owners, they’ll never notice.

Otherwise, it’s very composed and it’s a consummate highway car, with strong overtaking performance courtesy of the electric boost. The seven-speed gearbox behaved itself the whole time as well, and is perhaps flattered by the low-down torque fill effect of the electric motor.

The introduction of the wagon is a brave move in this SUV-mad market, but the Cupra team says it isn’t worried about volume but instead more interested in differentiation. The last PHEV wagon to launch in Australia was the excellent Peugeot 308 Touring for around the same price, and it sank without a trace, so I hope for wagon fans the company sticks to that line.

Into the first of the hatchbacks – and the entry level to the Leon range – it’s the Leon S. The specification is pretty similar across the range with the exception of the S’s six-speaker stereo against the Sennheiser 12-speaker in the Sports Tourer and VZe wagon.

The S is powered by a 1.5-litre four-cylinder with 110kW and 250Nm, both handy if not exceptional numbers. Added to the spec is a 48-volt mild-hybrid system. This means a small battery to help with a modest torque boost in the right conditions, as well as the ability for the engine to cut out earlier as you coast to a stop, saving fuel.

As with any number of its small-engined MQB-platformed VW Group cars, it’s a great car to drive. It feels light and agile. Even though you know it won’t pin you back in the seat, it really delivers in the corners.

It also rides really well, handling messy road surfaces with great ease and doing everything well. It’s a comfortable car and the seven-speed twin-clutch is well behaved, which is nice because it hasn’t always been the better of VW’s gearboxes.

Despite being well short of the VZx’s power and torque, the 250Nm of torque and responsive gearbox deliver decent overtaking and plenty of go on the uphill sections of the Great Western Highway. The engine worked hard but never sounded like it.

Each of the Leons has the same front seats – unless you spec the Extreme Package in the VZx – and it’s worth noting that they’re very good. They’re as comfortable as they look, with 12-way adjustment for the driver.

In the S they’re clothed in what Cupra calls Soul Black Dinamica, a sort of fake suede made of microfibre. Being a fan of cloth upholstery, I appreciated it very much. The same seats are in the Sports Tourer and the VZx but are wrapped in leather. The leather was nice enough and on either types, copper stitching sets things off.

The main change in the cabin is the new screen with updated software for greater responsiveness. Having driven a few VW Group cars this year, I can confirm it’s better and the 'pinning' of the climate-control display at the base of the screen is helpful, as are the better temperature up and down buttons for both climate zones.

There is also a new centre console design with low-profile shifter and a new bronze/copper element also found around the place. It’s a very classy interior and very comfortable.

The optional $7600 Extreme Package is available on the VZx and adds a set of much huggier Cup bucket seats while also deleting the front centre airbag.

The effect on the current five-star ANCAP rating is unclear, but it will likely be an unrated car with the Extreme Package. Which is grimly ironic given you also get a powerful Akebono-branded brake package, with six-piston calipers gripping the cross-drilled brakes.

Which brings us neatly to the car on which that package is available, the $64,990 VZx. Running on the same platform, it’s closely related to its VW Golf GTI cousin and runs the EA888 Evo4 engine, in this case delivering 221kW and 400Nm through the seven-speed twin-clutch.

Cupra claims a 5.4-second run to 100km/h, which is entirely believable. If that’s not quick enough, a faster one is on the way in wagon form with all-wheel drive, 245kW, and is the best part of a second quicker.

Suspension changes include a new multi-link rear end to replace torsion beams, as well as adaptive damping. The latter is shared with the Sports Tourer but is predictably rather more effective here. My drive in the VZx was on some challenging roads, with lots of bumps, hairpins, twists and surface changes.

Firing into corners, the standard brakes are very strong, pulling up nicely. The new mechanical diff keeps things very interesting on corner entry and something I particularly like – a rear end that moves around a bit under braking that you can use to get to the corner with minute steering adjustments – is great fun.

That diff also means very clean corner exits, with a characterful turbo whoosh through the firewall that I initially mistook for wheelspin. The most remarkable thing about this particular part of the drive program was that the ride, even in the most aggressive Cupra mode, never deteriorated into bumps and shoves that some stiffly sprung cars can suffer from.

The progressive steering – standard across the range – feels perfectly natural and is weighted very nicely through the three modes. The thing about the VZx is that it’s perfectly liveable in normal driving and is as easy to live with as the S, just with a lot more power. The all-wheel-drive version arriving next year will be fascinating to compare.

And when you dial it back out of Cupra mode, calm returns and it’s a very agreeable hatchback. The way a good hot hatch should be.

The new Cupra range will fill out in the coming months with the more potent all-wheel-drive 245kW Sports Tourer and a plug-in hybrid hatchback. The inevitable price rises have come with extra equipment to at least partially justify the price bump, and Cupra says the changes are based on customer feedback. Let’s be honest, some of that feedback was a few variants not selling that well.

The surprise package was the Leon S mild hybrid, which is great fun to drive at any speed and seemed efficient with it. If the improvements flow through to the later additions, the Leon is a strong, if pricey, line-up.