SEAT's Leon is worth pushing

There was a time, and I've been doing this job for long enough to remember it, that SEAT cars were copies of Fiats that were no longer new, writes Brian Byrne. And bad copies at that, as anyone who had to live with the clackety diesel Malaga and its awful rubbery gearshift will remember.

The history of the matter was the Spanish government's wish to establish a national car industry. They enlisted Fiat as a partner, and got things going. And so it was that over the years the SEAT brand grew in its native country. In particular, tourists from those days will recall that every taxi seemed to be a SEAT, and looked a lot like familiar Fiats.

Then Fiat pulled out, and Volkswagen was brought in as a partner. The German manufacturer had longer term ideas, and part of the deal was an option to buy outright from the government. Which it eventually did, and set about building SEAT as a brand that could stand on its own. Today, SEAT cars are stylish, distinctive, and are geared to provide a sportier ethos than the main VW brand. In general their running gear and platforms directly match VW models.

I was set to thinking all that while spending time recently with the current Leon, and wondering why it is relatively scarce on Ireland's roads.


The Leon is infinitely sexier in style than the Golf to which it is a cousin. I remember talking to the leader of the design team for SEAT's current compacts and he reckoned it to be the best of their efforts in the line launched by the Altea. The sleek bonnet and nose styling hides clever pedestrian-safety technologies, and in profile view it looks fast while standing still. Hatchbacks are very practical, but getting a nice style to one is a notoriously difficult task. In the case of the Leon, I reckon they managed it very well indeed.

The car's inside is well sculpted, though in previous versions I always found them to be rather dark. In the case of the latest driven, the S version, there's a metal-look section on the centre stack and the instruments surrounds that lightens things up nicely. The instruments, analogue dials, are neatly placed, and the gearshifter falls right to hand where I like it.

I had a rather longer time with the car than usual, living with it for two weeks on some travels through France. Given that French distances can be substantially longer than here at home, it turned out to be a really good test of what it is like to live with.

And the biggest impression of all was the superb comfort of the car both on long autoroute runs as well as twisting through the narrow mountain back roads in the centre part of the country. There was a time when Renault had the best seats in the business, but SEAT have at least caught up and in my view have probably passed the French maker out.

With essentially a Golf platform underpinning the car, the Leon's handling has to be pretty good. It certainly didn't disappoint me in any respect here.

If there's a small minus, it is the 1.9 105hp diesel that hummed under the bonnet. Well, it hummed very nicely on the run, but on trundles through town it gave away its age rather as being on the noisy side. This is not to downplay the excellence of the engine in reliability and frugality, but there's a new generation 1.6 diesel coming soon as I write this and it will really suit this car, as it does in both VW and Skoda models I've driven.

The specification of the review car was high, with dual zone climate control, electric windows front and rear, and that modern essential to help avoid speed fines, the cruise control. Alloys provided that bit of extra zest to the look of the car too.

In luggage terms, the car accomodated easily the amount of luggage two people thought they might need for a long foreign trip (far too much, of course, in the exuberance of packing without the restrictions of Ryanair and Aer Lingus) and the bringing home of enough good value wine to maintain the memory of the holiday for a reasonable time. As for carrying more people on short-haul, the leg and headroom in the rear is very good, as the coupe look of the roofline is actually more clever window styling than actual cut-down.

In Ireland, only one Leon is bought for every 10 Golfs. But it must be encouraging to the local brand manager that sales of the model have increasehd by 200 percent this year over last.

A bit of marketing can make all the difference. But it is only worthwhile if the product is itself worth pushing. And the Leon is.