Cupra Ateca SUV review: price, specifications, drive impressions

The softroader market is crowded with generic offerings, but this new European brand is trying to change that. It’s not for everyone, though.

The Cupra Ateca delivers a different spin on family motoring. Picture: Supplied.

This is an unfamiliar name

What’s a Cupra? The name used to be attached to performance cars built by Seat, Volkswagen’s Spanish subsidiary. Trainspotters might remember the Seat Ibiza Cupra sold locally in the late 1990s, a compact hot hatch similar to VW’s Polo GTI.

Now Cupra is here as a stand-alone entity, pitched as a premium, performance-focused and design-oriented alternative to its parent brand. Customers can choose from three models for now, the Golf-sized Leon, the stylish Formentor medium SUV or the boxier, more practical Ateca shown here.

The Ateca delivers strong performance in a practical package. Picture: Supplied.

The ingredients are familiar

You might not have heard of a Cupra Ateca before, but the mechanical elements should be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in modern cars. It has the Volkswagen Group’s 2.0-litre turbo motor, mated to a dual-clutch automatic transmission with all-wheel-drive. We’ve seen this in a wide array of cars from Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Volkswagen, including the popular VW Golf R hot hatch.

This Ateca is the same size as Skoda’s Karoq compact SUV and delivers similar packaging but more performance. A high roofline translates to plenty of headroom in the front and back seat, and the Ateca’s 485-litre boot is impressively spacious.

The Ateca has a big boot and good headroom. Picture: Supplied.

As expected, it’s quite quick

Powered by a 221kW and 400Nm version of the VW Group’s proven engine, the Ateca uses launch control and snappy gearshifts to hit 100km/h in an impressively quick 4.9 seconds. The Ateca is available overseas with less powerful motors, but Cupra decided the Aussie version should be a performance car, perhaps swayed by the popularity of more powerful versions of Volkswagen’s Tiguan. Optional extras include high-performance Brembo brakes and a sporty exhaust from European specialists Akrapovič that delivers snap-crackle-and-pop theatre.

Light steering returns quick responses from the Ateca, which has the same razor-sharp brake response and occasional transmission hesitance we’ve come to expect from the VW group. Cupra has tuned the Ateca’s handling to deliver a more engaging experience than a VW T-Roc or Skoda Karoq – the rear end will loosen its hold on the road to help the car tighten its line in fast corners.

Copper highlights make it stand out from the crowd. Picture: Supplied.

It’s more stylish than a VW

The Ateca makes a strong first impression, with eye-catching alloys finished with black and copper-coloured paint. Those golden highlights are everywhere you look, from the car’s badges, to the stitching on high-backed sports seats trimmed in petrol-blue leather. A digital dashboard is nice to have, and we like that the Ateca is a generation behind the latest VW models that replaced physical buttons with less satisfying touch-sensitive tiles.

The cabin materials are up-market and the design is classy. Picture: Supplied.

But it’s not cheap

Loaded with kit including LED headlights, a full array of driver assistance tech and toys such as wireless phone charging and a 9.2-inch infotainment screen with BeatsAudio HiFi, the Cupra Ateca VZX is not a basic car. Prices start from $65,990 drive-away, which is nearly $10,000 less than the mechanically similar Audi SQ2. But you have to be careful with options: choose the sports exhaust ($5950), Brembo brakes ($4050), metallic paint ($475) and sunroof ($1800) and the end result gets close to $80,000 on the road.