Hi All,
Just a brief intro to myself and my new Leon Cupra R
Ive been a long term fan of the Seat Brand, having grown up with my family being one of the first Seat Main Dealers in Ireland.
Growing up I always lusted after the Cupra models, but could never afford / insure any at the time. The closest I got was my mk2 Leon fr170 TDI at 22 which I adored at the time. Having since sampled various offerings from BMW, Alfa Romeo, Subaru, Vauxhall,Porsche and Maserati it was time to go back to Seat, A family mamber bought a brand new 2005 Leon Cupra R in emotion red as the company car at the time which he still has (And currently sits at 24k miles) and of late I have really fallen back in love with the shape, performance and overall usability of the LCR or hot hatches in general.
Now in my mid 30's and having sold quite a few of my other weekend cars to fund a house purchase, I realised it was time to revisit my teenage dream of LCR ownership and have a usable, appreciating classic that I can take to shows, and use regularly for b road blasts, The search commenced.
The LCR wasnt readily sold through the dealer network here in Ireland at the time, with only a handful of 210hp versions being registered here from new via special order from Seat head office. A decent number had since been imported here from mainland uk throughout the 00's, but many had since been crashed, broken for parts etc.
My initial search yielded the grand total of 2 cars available for sale in the whole country. Neither of which were to my liking. One needed considerable rust repairs and had virtually no service history, and the second was a very high mileage car which had been poorly resprayed and again had little to no history.
In pre Brexit times, I wouldnt have even bothered to look for one here and went straight to the UK,but this is no longer an option due to the astronomical costs involved with importing a car into Ireland from outsIde the EU. Luckily, Northern Irish cars, registered in Northern Ireland, pre Brexit, avoided many of the associated costs and would have seen a far greater number of LCR's on the roads than in the Republic where I am based so my search mainly focused on this area, and I waitied in hope.
A couple of weeks of waiting and trawling every single known site, my car popped up on Facebook Marketplace and looked decent. The owner of the car had owned it for 3 years, and bought it from his son in law who had owned it for 8 years previous. It had been in storage since 2020, and had recently been fitted with various new parts to pass the MOT.
Mileage is 82,000 backed up by a fairly decent service record, and assorted reciepts and the 2 pictures on the advertisment looked relatively good. Plans were immediately made to travel the 3 hrs to view it, and deal was struck with the seller who was an absolute gentleman who had a big collection of older Bmw's and Mg's which was very cool to see.
There are some rust spots that will need addressing, mainly at the bottoms of the wings, and both bumpers will need painting due to age related scuffs and marks which will be done asap and a full buff and detail to restore the aged paint. The front splitter is also missing and is proving very hard to find a genuine replacement. I managed to buy 5 new old stock genuine R badges which I am waiting on currently to arrive.
Aside from this, I hope to do a full service, Cambelt and Water Pump, and enjoy it for a couple of months before starting to do some slight modofications;
Just a brief intro to myself and my new Leon Cupra R
Ive been a long term fan of the Seat Brand, having grown up with my family being one of the first Seat Main Dealers in Ireland.
Growing up I always lusted after the Cupra models, but could never afford / insure any at the time. The closest I got was my mk2 Leon fr170 TDI at 22 which I adored at the time. Having since sampled various offerings from BMW, Alfa Romeo, Subaru, Vauxhall,Porsche and Maserati it was time to go back to Seat, A family mamber bought a brand new 2005 Leon Cupra R in emotion red as the company car at the time which he still has (And currently sits at 24k miles) and of late I have really fallen back in love with the shape, performance and overall usability of the LCR or hot hatches in general.
Now in my mid 30's and having sold quite a few of my other weekend cars to fund a house purchase, I realised it was time to revisit my teenage dream of LCR ownership and have a usable, appreciating classic that I can take to shows, and use regularly for b road blasts, The search commenced.
The LCR wasnt readily sold through the dealer network here in Ireland at the time, with only a handful of 210hp versions being registered here from new via special order from Seat head office. A decent number had since been imported here from mainland uk throughout the 00's, but many had since been crashed, broken for parts etc.
My initial search yielded the grand total of 2 cars available for sale in the whole country. Neither of which were to my liking. One needed considerable rust repairs and had virtually no service history, and the second was a very high mileage car which had been poorly resprayed and again had little to no history.
In pre Brexit times, I wouldnt have even bothered to look for one here and went straight to the UK,but this is no longer an option due to the astronomical costs involved with importing a car into Ireland from outsIde the EU. Luckily, Northern Irish cars, registered in Northern Ireland, pre Brexit, avoided many of the associated costs and would have seen a far greater number of LCR's on the roads than in the Republic where I am based so my search mainly focused on this area, and I waitied in hope.
A couple of weeks of waiting and trawling every single known site, my car popped up on Facebook Marketplace and looked decent. The owner of the car had owned it for 3 years, and bought it from his son in law who had owned it for 8 years previous. It had been in storage since 2020, and had recently been fitted with various new parts to pass the MOT.
Mileage is 82,000 backed up by a fairly decent service record, and assorted reciepts and the 2 pictures on the advertisment looked relatively good. Plans were immediately made to travel the 3 hrs to view it, and deal was struck with the seller who was an absolute gentleman who had a big collection of older Bmw's and Mg's which was very cool to see.
There are some rust spots that will need addressing, mainly at the bottoms of the wings, and both bumpers will need painting due to age related scuffs and marks which will be done asap and a full buff and detail to restore the aged paint. The front splitter is also missing and is proving very hard to find a genuine replacement. I managed to buy 5 new old stock genuine R badges which I am waiting on currently to arrive.
Aside from this, I hope to do a full service, Cambelt and Water Pump, and enjoy it for a couple of months before starting to do some slight modofications;
- Suspension (Coilovers or Shock & Spring Kit
- ARB
- Spacers
- Air Intake
- TIP
- Exhaust