Cupra Born VZ - long-term review

Having tooled around in the Born VZ for a few months, I recently spent some time in the facelifted Leon to see whether I’d have my Cupra hot hatch in petrol or electric form.

The Leon looks aggressive, no? The refresh to this current generation has brought an angry shark-nose front end, new LED lights, big wheels and chunky arches. Side-by-side, it also really highlights how tall and narrow the Born looks. Those proportions are a designer’s nightmare of course, but I still maintain the Born VZ is far more interesting to look at than its VW ID.3 GTX sibling. Still getting complements on those wheels too, although they’ve been collecting salt from the roads over winter and are an absolute nightmare to clean.

Anyway, in the 300 guise that you see here, the Leon is essentially a Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport in a sharp Spanish suit, and it really is an excellent hot hatch.

It uses the well-known VW Group 2.0-litre turbo four-pot and sends 296bhp to its front wheels through a seven-speed DSG auto gearbox that’s snappy once you get it up to speed. The 0-62mph sprint supposedly takes just 5.7 seconds too, which would make it just a tenth slower than the 322bhp rear-wheel drive Born despite the latter’s instantly available electric torque. In reality, on anything other than a bone-dry surface, the Leon’s front wheels scrabble around trying to find some purchase off the line.

That does give the petrol-powered hatch some proper character though. And once you’re on the move it actually becomes a little softer and favours a bit of understeer through bends before politely letting you know that it’s about to give up on grip. It’s not quite as precise as a Honda Civic Type R or as barking mad as a Hyundai i30N. It’s ever so slightly more aggressive than the equivalent Golf GTI though, and even with the pumped-in noise from the speakers turned off it offers more of an assault on the senses than the Born does.

At 1,651kg, the Leon 300 is also around 350kg lighter than the Born VZ, which makes a real difference to the steering, braking and well… just about everything. The trick front diff helps the Leon tuck into corners, and you get the sense that you could use the sportier end of the 15-stage adaptive dampers more often on UK roads when compared with ‘our’ Born. Worth noting that the Leon and Born are both fitted with the supremely comfortable CUP Bucket seats though – they’re a must if you’re speccing any flavour of Cupra hot hatch.

After a good mix of motorway, town and circuit driving in the Leon 300, I’d have to conclude that if I was buying a Cupra hot hatch it’d still feature a petrol engine for now. I’d almost certainly lose every traffic light drag race to the Born, it wouldn’t be as smooth or refined around town, and remarkably it’d cost more to buy outright (the Leon 300 in top spec VZ3 trim you see above was £50,085 with its supremely brown metallic paint!), but there’s more personality in the Leon. As mentioned last month, I think the Born is really hamstrung by its lack of sound.

The ‘leccy VZ will have a real chance of clawing back some hot hatch credibility soon though, because it’s over to my colleague Joe Holding for a proper track test at Anglesey Circuit. Just bring it back in one piece please, Joe.