CUPRA Leon Estate Red

With the option of a 245 horsepower plug-in hybrid or 310 horsepower petrol the Cupra Leon Estate offers two extremes, the good news being both deliver the kind of pace you’d hope for given the sporty image. With the ability to travel over 30 miles on electric power alone but a serious performance kick when working in partnership with the petrol engine the hybrid is an attractive option, and means you can enjoy the Cupra look with more affordable running costs. We’ll hope to try that version before too long but it’s hard to ignore the attractions of the more powerful petrol one (at least if the numbers work for you) and the extra weight of the all-wheel drive system and estate body over the hatchback are offset by a bit more power – 310 horsepower in the case of the estate. The hatch still feels a little more responsive but the estate pulls hard, the strong acceleration helped by the seamlessly smooth shifts of the standard automatic gearbox. This is one rapid car, the fact it has this level of performance in a more understated estate body meaning you can enjoy its abilities without attracting the attention you might in an equivalent hot hatch. We were less keen on the piped-in fake engine noise but you can at least turn this off in the personalised Individual mode in the driver settings.