how do you choose between a sensible purchase and a fun purchase on the one hand life is short and
it's yours to live but on the other you don't want to make a rash decision that could cost you money
in the long run if that sounds familiar then the bad news is
is that it also applies to car buying as well the good news though is that some cars such as this
cupra leon estate promise to offer you the best of both worlds
for those that don't know cooper is the spin-off performance brand of the spanish
manufacturer sayat so while the car you're seeing on your screen now looks an awful
lot like a say at leon estate it is in fact a cooper and you can tell is from
the badge and the fetching bronze detailing around the car
so what does the cupra leon estate do well just like the vw golf r and skoda octavia vrs the state
models it is a sensible practical family estate car that happens to be very very fast indeed
i mean i should know because i've been running this exact car for the last
five months now and in the next few minutes i'm gonna tell you all the things i like about it
all the things i don't like and whether it's worth it's near 40 000 pound asking price
the cupra layon estate is available with two petrol engines there's the 310 horsepower two
liter four-cylinder model that we're reviewing here and there's also a 1.4 liter plug-in hybrid
version that comes with a 13 kilowatt battery when fully charged it'll produce 245 horsepower and
around 30 all electric miles of range however when the battery gets depleted you're not to 62 mile an
hour times and average fuel consumption figures will increase significantly so as i explained in
the intro i've been running this car for over five months so i reckon i know the interior back to
front by now and there are plenty of good points about it it looks very similar to a regular say at
layon interior but there are some nice things to differentiate it so you've got the bronze
detailing spread around the cabin but you've also got this steering wheel which reminds me of one
from an audi r8 mainly because of these buttons down here so you've got the engine start stop
button just how it is in an audi r8 and you've also got a shortcut to the drive modes which
is actually really really handy if you just want to quickly switch through them the seats on this
vz2 spec car they're the sports bucket seats they're nice and comfortable they've got enough
adjustment i've heard some people say they can be a little bit tight just around here the bolsters
but i find them very comfortable and they keep you in place well you can get heated leather and
electrically adjustable seats but you need to pay more for the vz3 trim and honestly
although these could be heated i actually think they're really good seats storage space in here is
also really good we've got a decent sized glove box where you can put lots of things in there
we've got the center armrest which is again quite deep storage space under there there's a cup
holder two cup holders here one for a large cup one for a small cup got these little inlets either
side of this tiny tiny gear lever which you can put some coins or the keys in for example there's
a place for your phone ahead of that with two usb c charging points and if you go for the vz3 spec
you get a wireless charging pad there as well now one rather important thing that i'm less a fan of
in this interior is the infotainment system every version of the cooper layout estate gets a 10
inch central touchscreen with a system that looks on the face of it like it has all the features
you could ever need and actually the graphics look nice and it does the job when you're just casually
looking at it but having lived with this car for a while now i've got to say it can crash just
randomly it can be very slow to respond if it's been left dormant for a while and there's some
weird quirks in the way that it's been programmed that makes me feel like it was a little bit rushed
as i said the graphics are good the functionality is good and for a lot of the time it does work
well but it's just that inconsistency which can be frustrating you've also got something where
the climate control settings are controlled by these touch buttons underneath the central screen
and although that looks fine again on the face of it it's only when you drive this car at night
that you realize that they don't actually light up so you can't see where the blue
and the red is so you can't see which button makes it cooler and which button makes it hotter so
you're kind of fumbling around looking for those climate control buttons and it feels like it would
have been a really easy fix but for some reason they didn't do it which is a shame and i've got
to say that when i ran a 2017 seat leon cooper estate car before it became the cooper badge
the infotainment system was a highlight it was very simple to use nothing fancy but it did its
job it was consistent and you had those physical climate control dials and that just felt like a
more polished package than what we've got here one thing i didn't have though on my 2017 cooper was
this digital dashboard display so i'm quite a fan of this it replaces traditional dials and instead
you've got a screen in front of you which gives you all the information you could possibly need
and what's more you can customize it pretty much until your heart's content so you can go through
various different screens and displays for how you want the information shown and you can also
then customize those individual displays using the little panels on the left and the right so you can
see all the information you want or as little information as you want it's actually a really
nice digital dash and not every manufacturer gets this right but cooper has done a really
really good job with that so top marks for the digital dash less keen on the infotainment system
standard equipment on the cuprolleon estate is pretty extensive and includes
the aforementioned touchscreen and digital dash apple carplay and android auto a rear view camera
ambient lighting and four switchable driving modes this particular car comes
with the optional magnetic grey paint and towbar pre-installation with a built-in hook
when it comes to rear seat space the cooper layer on a state isn't actually that far
behind the class-leading skoda octavia estate vrs because you've got plenty of knee room got plenty
of leg room lots of head room as well and it generally feels nice and light and airy back here
you will probably struggle to get three adults across the back or you could do it for a short
journey the main reason for that is this big chunky central transmission tunnel but then
that's not really different to any of this cars arrivals so no complaints there you get a separate
climate control zone back here but you can lock that so the kids can't stop messing with it
you also get two usbc charging points you get isofix points on the outer rear seats and on the
passenger seat and also a door which opens fairly wide so you can get that child seat in easily
as for boot space the leon estate is competitive with rivals offering 620 liters of capacity
although it's worth noting that this drops to 470 liters if you have the plug-in hybrid variant
handy pockets sit on either side of the main load bay and a sliding tonneau cover is included to
aid privacy before i talk to you about how the cupra leon estate drives i'm going to give you
three alternatives that you can buy and run for a vaguely similar amount of money
first up is the vw golf r estate it hasn't been launched at the time of filming but rest assured
that the wagon version of this hugely popular hot hatch is a great alternative to the layon
meanwhile if you want something a little bigger the skoda octavia estate vrs will
do the job perfectly and if you really are looking for something different then
take a look at the cupra formentor suv as it uses the same running gear as the leon
so why would you spend all that extra money on a cooper leon rather than a saiya leon well a
lot of the answer surely is that you want it to be fast and fun to drive and thankfully this is
i'll start with the engine and it's a two liter 310 horsepower four-cylinder turbo
charged petrol and together with the seven speed dsg gearbox it absolutely flies along
i mean not to 62 miles an hour in 4.9 seconds and it feels it in fact it feels even quicker
there's power low down in the rev range there's power in the mid-range and there's even plenty of
grunts at the top end which you might not expect from a turbocharged engine but this really goes
i mean overtaking is effortless and because of that all-wheel drive system
it doesn't matter what the conditions are you can always put that power down
even if it's slippery or greasy it just puts it down with zero fuss
through the corners i'd say it's not quite as sharp as the hatchback version because you have
got that big bit out back which adds on a little bit of extra weight and it also makes the car
a little bit more cumbersome but it still changes direction admirably and you can really get some
nice amount of movement on the brakes so you can turn in and really enjoy the car on a good road
i mean i would say that the brake pedal could be a little bit firmer maybe and you
could have a little bit better body control but having said earlier that i ran a 2017
say at leon cooper estate this is definitely an improvement it feels more agile it feels more
willing to dart through the corners i mean honestly you feel pretty unstoppable in this
thing because it is just so unshakable but it's still good fun now of course in everyday driving
which is probably what you'll spend most of your time doing even with the best will in the world
you'll probably want to switch the drive modes into either the comfort setting or what i've
got it in now which is the individual setting and the reason i have it an individual is because you
can have the adaptive dampers which are standard on the estate version of the cuprolayon you can
have them in the softest settings or the best ride but you can have the engine in a slightly sportier
setting and the gearbox in a sportier setting and also the exhaust in a sportier setting so
the car feels a bit more perky than it would in the comfort mode where it can be a little
bit lazy when you're just trying to zip away from the lights and of course you've also got a full-on
cupra mode which puts everything in the craziest setting but i think that individually just gives
you a nice little halfway house between full-on comfort and full-on cupra for everyday driving
i mean on these 19-inch alloy wheels the ride comfort is pretty good it's not perfect it could
be a bit more polished especially over expansion joints where it does seem to crash through them
sometimes but you know 90 of the time it's a good ride quality it doesn't feel too fussy and overall
it works well with the amount of refinement you get which again is pretty good you can start to
hear more wind noise at higher speeds but nothing to stop you from feeling relaxed in this car which
i usually do until you put it in some of the sportier modes on the whole this is a very easy
car to drive it's not too wide you've got really good visibility there's power when you want it
there's fuel economy when you don't need it i mean a long term average in this i'm getting about 35
miles per gallon but i have seen well over 40 into mid 40s on a longer run so it can be economical
the only real downside to the driving experience in my view is some of the driver assistance
systems because the lane guidance or the lane departure warning you have to turn it off
every time you turn the car on it won't just save as being off and trust me you'll want it off
because it is so overzealous in how it polices where you are on the road going down a country
road it's such a pain in the arts and you just want to turn it off but it never stays off so you
have to do that at the start of every journey and when you do that the digital dash display
it always then defaults to the driver assistance screen which isn't probably what you wanted or
what you had it on so that's a bit of a weird thing and it goes back to the quirks that seem
a bit strange i mentioned with the infotainment system because no idea why it does that
um also the autonomous emergency braking obviously every car has that now i've noticed it do some
phantom braking from time to time so only at low speeds but it slammed the anchors on for
no apparent reason again it's not the only car to do that i have driven other cars that do it
but just be aware of it because it can be quite frightening and it can catch out the people behind
you obviously but actually i'm not against all of the driver assistance tech because the blind spot
monitoring is really useful not least because the mirrors could probably be a bit bigger for a car
of this size but also because the lights are really nicely integrated into the doors so you get
a nice orange light which tells you when there's a car in the blind spot and that's super useful
if you're looking to buy a cupra layon estate but you're not sure which one to
go for then here's my top three choices for the cheapest one available it's the vz2 spec
e hybrid model if you're a company car driver then again
get the e hybrid in either vz2 or vz3 spec doesn't matter and if you want the fastest
one then get this the four-cylinder 2-liter 310 horsepower turbocharged petrol version
for those that need to roll practicality and performance into a single car the koopaleon
estate is right up there with the best of them for around 40 000 pounds not only does
it drive and perform well it also provides an intriguing and to these eyes more stylish
alternative to the upcoming vw golf r estate as i said earlier it's only the inconsistent
infotainment system which frustrates me about this car especially because it was so good in
the previous say at leon cupra and i have to wonder if i'd have only driven this car for a
week and reviewed it over a week would it have annoyed me more however having used this car
for the last few months i can recognize that the infotainment is only a part of what is
otherwise a very very good package and one that i'd recommend without much hesitation it's fun
it's fast it's practical it's well equipped and it's also quite comfortable for the most part it
does offer the best of both worlds and for this kind of money i think that's a pretty good deal
you