Came across this and thought I'd share.
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Guest, 🚨New Stock alert: Premium CUPRA valve caps now available in the store 👉 Order now from the merchandise store
The history of the CUPRA
- Thread starter Lmbarrett83
- Start date
My first SEAT back in 1996 was one of those GTI's and I remember my dealer taking me to a Cupra day at Knockhill track, where we drove road Cuprs's in that Kiwi Yellow (green) and had a go in the rally cars, skid pan and ABS demo's (SEAT were F2 world champions at the time) All the instructors/drivers where girls and I was surpised that so many were into motorsport back then. it was a great day and I bought many Cupra's from that dealer till they closed in 2014, where I swapped to Fife SEAT, and bought my current Cupra. That video has brought it all back.
For the original leon cupra's in the UK, my understanding is that the leon cupra was basically a leon sport, but with all the optional extras in place and badged up my UK dealers as a cupra.. It did NOT have the nice bumpers etc and looked much like a stock leon with 16" alloys.
It did have leather interior, auto dimming mirrors, ESP, dipping revers mirror, CD changer etc...
However seat was struggling, it was not making money, and it didn't have its 'own place' within the VAG group... creating a cupra by adding all the options just encroached into the Audi market (the dash being from an audi probably didnt help) and so things had to change.
So seat was potentially going to become the sports brand within the VAG group = (Audi prestige, VW reliable, Skoda Value, and Seat sporty..)
So they dropped leather seats and the optional extras for the CUPRA and instead fitted 17" alloys, the bumpers and skirts (basically from the cupra 4) and voila you had the facelift cupra MK1 which most people associate as the CUPRA brand. Seats offered a sporty car with VAG quality but at a more competitive price, it brought new people into the VAG group market and was/is popular with a younger buyers.
and here we are 20 years or so later.
It did have leather interior, auto dimming mirrors, ESP, dipping revers mirror, CD changer etc...
However seat was struggling, it was not making money, and it didn't have its 'own place' within the VAG group... creating a cupra by adding all the options just encroached into the Audi market (the dash being from an audi probably didnt help) and so things had to change.
So seat was potentially going to become the sports brand within the VAG group = (Audi prestige, VW reliable, Skoda Value, and Seat sporty..)
So they dropped leather seats and the optional extras for the CUPRA and instead fitted 17" alloys, the bumpers and skirts (basically from the cupra 4) and voila you had the facelift cupra MK1 which most people associate as the CUPRA brand. Seats offered a sporty car with VAG quality but at a more competitive price, it brought new people into the VAG group market and was/is popular with a younger buyers.
and here we are 20 years or so later.
Good video and nice to see the Cupra GTi I loved those in the lime green colour back in the day. It's all a bit disappointing that now the Cupra re-brand just pump out grey versions of SUV's when they had a great lineage of hot hatches. I really hope the Cupra Leon MK4 is amazing, really driver focused and available with a manual 'box and some loud colours.
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