SEAT Creates New Performance Sub-brand

Volkswagen’s subsidiary in Spain SEAT has announced that the company is launching a new performance sub-brand, Cupra. Cupra will be positioned as a brand that rivals Nissan’s Nismo, Toyota’s GR and Volkswagen’s R division. Cupra models will no longer have Seat branding. The company is making this move to make Cupra a standalone brand in order to give it more freedom to diverge from Seat’s regular production models. So far, the only Cupra performance model that Seat has is the limited edition 306 bhp Seat Leon Cupra R. In the coming years, the Cupra range will be expanded and heavily leverage the expertise of motorsport division Seat Sport.

SEAT has unveiled the logo of the new sub-brand but has revealed little else. SEAT is slated to make a formal presentation of the Cupra sub-brand on February 22 and the Cupra will unveil its first model on March 6 at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show. The first model is likely to be a souped up version of the Ateca SUV SEAT has, which is quite similar to the Volkswagen Tiguan.

Seat has been growing at a fast pace, with as many as 468,400 units being delivered in 2017. This was an increase of 14.6 percent when compared to the previous year. When compared to other brands in the Volkswagen Group, Seat has significantly outperformed other brands, far outstripping Skoda, which exhibited the second highest level of growth with 6.6 increase over the previous year.

Seat’s Cupra models have always received plenty of attention. The Leon Cupra hatchback had set a front-wheel-drive lap record in 2014 at Nürburgring.