Cupra Leon 300 Fast Fleet test – living with Spain's 300bhp hot hatch

No, your eyes are not deceiving you: our new Leon really is matt brown. Or ‘Century Bronze’ as Cupra prefers to call it. And I have to say, I like it. It’s certainly different – a talking point – and could there be a more perfect colour for disguising the filth of a British winter?

What I’m less sure about is the Leon’s ‘shark nose’ face, which to these eyes looks a bit Telsa Model 3 in its top half, before flipping to a bold egg-crate design below. Ostrich eggs, presumably, given the amount of radiator you can see exposed through the large openings. Perhaps I need a little longer to get used to the new phizog (remember how we once gasped at the current M4’s ginormous nostrils?) but at least the mid-life glow-up has made this hot hatch look more like, well, a hot hatch. One of the biggest disappointments with its predecessor was how plain it looked; the metallic white long-termer I ran back in 2022 had a depressingly ordinary appearance.

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Mechanically, it’s business as usual, so this hatchback version gets a 2-litre TSI producing 296bhp and 295lb ft of torque, delivered through a seven-speed DSG gearbox to the front wheels only. But then the pre-facelift Leon 300 never felt lacking in the ‘go’ department, so this doesn’t really feel like a missed opportunity to up the outputs. (Although if you feel it does, the estate has 328bhp – 22bhp more than its predecessor – along with four-wheel drive and the torque-splitter rear diff from the RS3/Golf R.)

Inside, the centre console, dash and door panels were refreshed over the pre-facelift. So too was the infotainment, which is controlled by a larger, 12.9-inch touchscreen, which on first acquaintance gives you that feeling you get when you visit a friend’s house and discover they’ve bought a new TV that’s a size too big for their living room. It soon starts to feel right-sized though, and – crucially – the software has had a makeover too, to rid it of the gripes and gremlins of the previous system. And it’s good news so far: a month in, I’ve no complaints.

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Another issue is fixed with the introduction of backlighting for the temperature and volume sliders that sit beneath the central screen, so now you can actually see what you’re prodding at after dark – particularly handy for passengers less familiar with the layout. And here’s another improvement: the steering wheel has gained the satellite mode button that the hatchback was previously cruelly denied, so there’s no more laborious poking around the touchscreen menus to switch between modes.

Best of all, though, are the new ‘Cup’ bucket seats. Carbonfibre-backed and generous of bolster, they hold you snugly in place and look fabulous. Well, mostly – the speckled sportswear vibe of the central panels may not be to all tastes, but you can’t see that when you’re sitting in them.

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To get said seats you need to spec the top-level VZ3 trim, which takes the Leon 300’s £43,775 starting price up to £49,675, but you also gain 19-inch black and copper alloys, upgraded Akebono front brakes (six-piston calipers with 375mm discs), Intelligent Park Assist and a 12-speaker Sennheiser sound system. Our car adds two further options to this: the aforementioned matt paint (£2035) and a panoramic sunroof (£890). I think I might have skipped the latter if I had specced the car, because having the front half of the roof in glossy glass clashes with the stealth-fighter effect of the matt paint elsewhere. People seem to like big skylights in cars, though, and I will admit it brings some welcome extra greylight into the cabin during these dreary winter days.

All in, then, you’re looking at a hot hatch that costs well over £50,000 here. But it is a particularly well-equipped one, which should see the Leon more ready than ever to take on its rivals. As I write, KY74 JTX has just completed its running-in mileage, so next month we’ll start to put that to the test.

This story was first featured in evo issue 330.