they could have taken the renault approach pretty cheaply.
Yep, they could have stripped the seats out the back, added half a cage, fine tuned the suspension, added lightweight wheels and uprated brakes, LSD etc. There are however two problems with doing that;
1) It would cost money to develop (although they could never really expect to make money without spending some to develop something worth buying)
2) With the Leon being a 5 door only, it narrows down the weight loss possibilities somewhat.
What they have done here is made a
Cupra go slightly faster although I am willing to bet that the performance figures between the
Cupra and
Cupra R will be all but identical. 25PS or 10% is not going to be a huge amount of difference on the road.
It will be interesting to see the price premium of the LCR over the LC. If the
Ibiza Bocenagra is anything to go by compared to the
Ibiza Cupra, there will be a minimal price difference. If that was the case however, whats the point in the
Cupra if they cost much the same? Realistically, SEAT will not get away with charging anything more than £1k over the
Cupra price for what essentially boils down to a slightly larger set of wheels which are going to be heavier, more expensive to replace tyres with, and give a crashier ride, 2 badges and 25PS more.