Seat Leon: a Spanish-made Golf but not as good

A Seat is meant to be a cheap Golf with Spanish flair and pizzazz. But it’s really just a waste of metal and plastic.

The Seat Leon X-Perience SE Technology is boring. An Octavia Scout is cheaper, and looks better.

Since I began testing cars 31 years ago I have never once driven a Seat. The company has never offered and I’ve never asked because I really couldn’t see the point.

Unlike Jaguar or Honda or Chevrolet, Seat wasn’t created by one man with a vision and a passion for speed, beauty and power. It was created because at the time Spain was emerging from its Third World status and the government didn’t want its people squandering their beads and their chickens, or whatever currency they used at the time, on high-value imports such as cars.

So it did what all emerging nations do: set up a factory on home turf to make cheap little runabouts and then put huge taxes on imported cars.

This may seem sound economic thinking, but when you are making a car for people who are trading up from a mule, there’s no competition and the bean counters are all civil servants, it’s not going to be very good.

The government didn’t even bother giving it a decent name. It’s all very well coming up with a statist acronym for the Spanish Car Company, but did it not think, “Wait a minute. If we sell this thing in the English-speaking world, Seat is going to look a bit silly”? At least it didn’t go for Spanish High Industry Technology.

When I first started to notice Seat, it was making Fiat Pandas under licence and I didn’t bother driving one because why would I care about an Italian car made by a bunch of people who the week before had been shooting one another and stabbing cows?

Eventually the deal with Fiat fell apart, and Seat had a bash at going it alone. Do you remember what it came up with? Nope. Me neither. But it can’t have been much of a success because pretty soon its bosses were standing outside Volkswagen’s HQ, hoping for assistance.

Today Seat makes Volkswagens. They don’t look like Volkswagens, but if you examine every piece you will find they are identical to the engines, gearboxes and switches you find in a Golf.

Who would choose to have his car made by Spaniards, who are good at fishing off Cornwall, when he could have the same thing made by Germans, who, let’s be frank, are good at making cars?

The answer: Seat’s Golf — the Leon — is cheaper than VW’s Golf. But if you want a cheaper Golf, you can buy a Skoda Octavia, which is made by Czechs, who are also good at making cars.

The idea is, though, that if you buy a Seat you get a cheaper Golf with a bit of Mediterranean flair and pizzazz. A bit of that Barcelona angel dust. Which raises a couple of questions about the Seat Leon X-Perience SE Technology that was sent round to my house last week.

What Mediterranean flair? What pizzazz? What Barcelona angel dust?

Yes, I agree, it had very snazzy door mirrors, but apart from this it was a nondescript waste of metal and plastic. And it was brown. Seat tries to jazz this up by saying it’s actually Adventure Brown, but there’s no such thing. Adventure colours are purple and lime green. You never see a brown Hobie Cat or a brown jet ski or a woman in brown underwear. Unless she’s, like, 90.

This car is supposed to put us in the middle of Barcelona, sitting in a fun little restaurant on a sunny day, watching the crowds go past, but in fact it’s as far removed from that as a monster truck is from the gurgle of a newborn baby. I tried as I drove along to imagine who on earth would want to buy such a thing.

The car I tried is fitted with a 110kW turbo diesel engine tuned to deliver as many miles to the gallon as possible. The result: unless you give it a bootful of revs when setting off, you’ll stall. Also, any attempt to use second for a low-speed manoeuvre means you will judder to a halt and people will point and laugh.

The X-Perience tag tells us this car is an estate and has the four-wheel drive system used in the Golf Alltrack and the Skoda Octavia Scout. And not only do you get all-wheel drive, but it rides higher than the basic Leon, and some of the more vulnerable panels are shrouded in plastic. It might not be a bad farm car, this. Apart from the stalling. And the fact that an almost identical Skoda is cheaper. Certainly the boot is huge.

Further forwards, you get a Golf steering wheel, sat nav, climate control and dials, all for only a fraction more than you pay for the same stuff in a Skoda.

To drive, however, it feels like a Lamborghini Aventador. I’m lying. I just wanted to think of something different to say because, actually, it feels like a Golf or an Octavia, and I bet you’re getting a bit fed up with that observation now. I know I am.

So I’m grateful to Seat for lending me this car because it reinforces every belief I’ve held about its cars. They’re a waste of time. If they were bright and funky, ran on rioja and had upholstery made from prawn shells, then I could see the point. They would offer an upbeat, flamenco alternative to a humourless Volkswagen. But they don’t.

The car I drove was boring. And brown. And you can buy an Octavia Scout, which is the same car only better-looking, for less.

Seat Leon X-Perience SE Technology: small wagon

Engine: 2.0 litre, turbocharged, four-cylinder diesel

Outputs: 110kW at 3500rpm and 340 Nm at 1750rpm

Transmission: Six-speed manual, all-wheel drive

Fuel: 4.9 litres per 100km

Price: £26,905 (N/A Australia)

Verdict: All the x-citement of lukewarm paella

Rating: 2 out of 5