CUPRA Ateca

Seat has made the CUPRA into a high-performance sub-brand in the way Fiat did theirs to Abarth, meaning they really know how to separate the real men from the big boys when it comes to cars and just like Fiat's Abarth, the CUPRA brand from Seat will venture deep to their motorsport involvement and use all of the racing know-how to their new breed of vehicles. Their first outing wasn't what we're expecting for because they've used the Seat Ateca compact crossover as their guinea pig to mutate into their maiden mutant on the road.

2019 SEAT Cupra Ateca

The Cupra Ateca will be the first to don the terrifying copper-colored CUPRA emblem all over and when they see a SEAT like this donning this emblem of doom, they'd better hide themselves because staring at the copper-colored CUPRA emblem is a thousand times scarier than the sequential turn signals from today's Ford Mustang. Scary-looking the emblem is, the Cupra Ateca is basically your basic Seat Ateca crossover mutated with a striking exterior design that sets the new standards of the new CUPRA brand.

On the inside, it still works like the normal Ateca does. It has decent space at the back for some fireworks on New Year's Eve, room for your friends to tag along on a road trip, connectivity features to toy around with, it's everything except for one major difference to the Ateca's interior. Since this is the balls-out CUPRA Ateca, the seats are donned in Alcantara so it's surprisingly smooth and comfortable to relax with.

Under the hood, the CUPRA Ateca is powered by a high-performance 2.0L 4-cylinder direct injection turbo engine producing 300PS of power and 400Nm of torque. That's about as much as what the Subaru WRX STi carries but this is no Subie, you know, because even though this comes with 4Drive four-wheel drive system that behaves like that Subie I've mentioned earlier, the Cupra Ateca is mated to a 7-speed DSG and if you are new to driving, you might be having a hard time starting this car with such gearbox. Come back if you have ample vehicular experience.

Those who have familiarity with how things work, it's good to know that the Cupra Ateca can get through 100kph in 5.2 seconds and onwards to just 247kph. If speed doesn't matter, how about dynamics? Sure, it maybe a crossover but the way the CUPRA Ateca handles is WRX STi-quality behind the wheel. It's pretty good on a weekend drive but when taken to track days and engaged the CUPRA mode, it's crunch time! When engaged, the mild-but-menacing character the CUPRA Ateca comes alive, meaning that its grippy nature makes it more hot hatch-ish for a crossover of this size but be careful though, when the struggle gets all to real, better be prepared with your health insurance.

Should you buy it? The Cupra Ateca starts at 46,044 Euros, which is surprisingly expensive but it's a start. The Cupra Ateca is not the welcoming salvo we're expecting for Seat's new CUPRA brand but as a sports utility hero, it's not half bad to toy around with everyday. With the CUPRA brand introduced to the world with the Ateca, expect jealousy in store for those who want to drive one because in that case, we are jealous to drive one right now.

Photo: SEAT, S.A.