At the risk of sounding ungrateful…
When so much is wrong in the world – proper life-and-death wrong – it can seem rather absurd to be worrying about the fine degrees of difference that separate a good car from a great car. None the less, that’s pretty much our job here, so that’s precisely what I’m going to do.
To put everything in some kind of context, I need to stress that the Cupra Leon Estate is quick, comfortable and easy to get on with. On a cold, wet day it will keep you warm and safe. On a hot, dry day it will keep you cool and entertained. Its ample boot will happily absorb bicycles, guitars, tents and whatever else you wish to transport.
It’s happy pootling around town, and it’s a willing workhorse on long motorway missions. But what about those in-between journeys, where you’ve got somewhere to be, but you’ve got time to take an interesting route? I had one of those days recently, when I needed to go to Goodwood to eat a very agreeable lunch with a lovely bunch of people, and Imanaged to get up early enough to take a route that would dodge the traffic that can make the journey to West Sussex some sort of first-world Hell.
And that’s where the Leon proved itself to be… okay? Maybe it’s me. Maybe I need to clock up a few thousand more miles to really get a feel for it. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the ride quality is the wrong sort of firm, exacerbated by a nerve-shredding amount of road noise. And the bigger issue is that it always seems to be the wrong gear. Even when I use the paddles to manually override the auto ’box, the powertrain never feels or sounds entirely happy, as if it’s straining towards something it’s never going to achieve.
